Mary Holiday Black

Women in the Arts » Folk Art

Prolific basket weaver considered primarily responsible for the preservation and renaissance of the art of Navajo basketry. Black is perhaps most famous for her “story baskets,” which are baskets depicting legends and beliefs in woven form. Among her many honors, Black has received the Utah Governor’s Folk Art Award (1995) as well as a National Heritage Fellowship Award from the National Endowment for the Arts — the highest honor given to American folk artists — which was presented to her in 1996 by then-First Lady Hillary Clinton.