PRESS RELEASE

ROSE B. SIMPSON: LEXICON

The de Young Museum Presents Rose B. Simpson: LEXICON, an Homage to Pueblo Art by Artist Rose B. Simpson

de Young museum

August 30, 2025–August 2, 2026

The first solo exhibition at the de Young by a contemporary Native American artist includes two newly commissioned works

Museums to celebrate the opening of newly reinstalled Native American art galleries

SAN FRANCISCO, March 31, 2025 — This summer, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco will present Rose B. Simpson: LEXICON, a striking homage to Pueblo art by Native American artist Rose B. Simpson.

Rose B. Simpson: LEXICON will transform the de Young’s public atrium, Wilsey Court, into a celebration of the artist’s community in Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico. The exhibition will present two customized classic cars—Maria, a 1985 Chevrolet El Camino, and a newly commissioned 1964 Buick Riviera that will be painted with pottery motifs, honoring both Pueblo pottery traditions and the Lowrider culture of northern New Mexico. The two cars will be surrounded by an expansive site-specific mural that wraps around Wilsey Court, evoking the environment of the Southwest and transforming the space into a representation of a pottery vessel. Through this use of Pueblo designs, Simpson forges connections between the ancestral and the contemporary, forming a new visual vocabulary, or lexicon, to assert her cultural heritage and its continuance.

“Rose B. Simpson’s LEXICON deeply engages with the rich tradition of Pueblo pottery,” said Thomas P. Campbell, Director and CEO of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. “As stewards of an exceptional collection of Pueblo pottery, the Fine Arts Museums are proud to highlight Simpson’s work, which bridges past and present with a profound expression of ancestral history and contemporary existence.”

As part of the exhibition, Simpson will be debuting her second custom car, a 1964 Buick Riviera, decorated with polychrome pottery designs. It will be presented alongside her first custom car, a 1985 Chevy El Camino titled Maria. Created in 2014, Simpson painted the El Camino with a matte and gloss black-on-black motif inspired by Tewa pottery designs. She named it Maria as an homage to the renowned Tewa artist Maria Martinez (San Ildefonso Pueblo, 1887–1980), who with her husband, Julian Martinez (San Ildefonso Pueblo, 1885–1943), revived and popularized a style of reduction-fired pottery with a distinctive black-on-black finish. Both of the cars in Wilsey Court will be fully operational, as it’s critical to Simpson’s conceptualization of these works of art that they can be driven and used.

“Rose B. Simpson: LEXICON highlights a unique side of the artist’s practice and brings a celebration of Pueblo art and culture to the central hub of the de Young museum,” said Hillary C. Olcott, Curator of Arts of the Americas at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and curator of the exhibition. “The installation connects the car cultures of New Mexico and California and encourages visitors to reflect on the visual vocabularies that form each of our own identities.”

Rose B. Simpson: LEXICON explores the metaphor of the car as a vessel, its importance in our contemporary lives, and its relationship to the historic role of Pueblo pottery. Growing up in the Española Valley, New Mexico—the self-proclaimed “Lowrider Capital of the World”—Simpson had always dreamed of having her own custom classic car. After receiving her MFA in ceramics from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Simpson enrolled in the Automotive Science program at Northern New Mexico College. Simpson recognizes that the Lowriders she sees throughout her community—classic cars with lowered chassis and decorated with eye-catching paint jobs—are works of art, and that cruising them is a form of performance. The Lowriders are symbols of success as well as bold statements of identity. They are also objects of power, granting the driver freedom of movement along with a sense of safety and protection, similar to a suit of armor. Like Pueblo pottery, the cars are part of the visual landscape of her home and expressions of the multifaceted and multicultural history of New Mexico.

Rose B. Simpson: LEXICON will coincide with the opening of the newly renovated Native American art galleries at the de Young in August 2025. Native scholars from diverse disciplines and cultural backgrounds have played key roles on the curatorial team and advisory committee for the reinstallation. This collaboration has led to new scholarship on the Fine Arts Museums’ collections of ancestral and historic Native American items, offering visitors a more nuanced lens through which to view and understand these artworks. The redesigned galleries will also feature new acquisitions and commissions by contemporary Indigenous artists, demonstrating the vibrancy of Native American art today. Together, the artworks explore the interconnection between communities, homelands, systems of knowledge, and generations past, present, and future.

About the Artist

Rose B. Simpson (b. 1983, Santa Clara Pueblo, NM) has an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design and an MA in Creative Writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts. In 2024, Simpson debuted a public sculpture project at Madison Square Park and Inwood Hill Park, New York, and was featured in the Whitney Biennial. Her works are in numerous museum collections, including the Met, New York; Hirshhorn, Washington, D.C.; Guggenheim, New York; Museum of Fine Arts Boston; ICA Boston; Princeton University Art Museum, New Jersey; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia; MCA Chicago; Denver Art Museum; Portland Art Museum, OR; LACMA, Los Angeles; Pomona College Museum of Art, Claremont, CA; and SFMOMA. Simpson has enjoyed solo shows at the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL; ICA Boston; The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia; the Nevada Art Museum, Reno; SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, GA; Pomona College Museum of Art; and the Wheelwright Museum, Santa Fe. In 2025, Simpson will be the subject of a solo exhibition at the de Young, San Francisco. Her work has recently been included in group exhibitions at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA; Cleveland Museum of Art; SFMOMA; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts; the Berkeley Art Museum, CA; and the Bronx Museum of the Arts, NY, and the 2025 Hawai'i Triennial. Simpson lives and works in Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico. She is represented by Jessica Silverman, San Francisco, and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.

Exhibition Organization and Support

Rose B. Simpson: LEXICON is organized by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and will be presented in the de Young museum’s free-admission public atrium. The exhibition is organized by Hillary C. Olcott, Curator of Arts of the Americas, in collaboration with the Museums’ Contemporary Art Program.

About the Art of the Americas Collection and Program 

Indigenous art of the Americas has been part of the museum collections since the time of the California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894, and the holdings have grown substantially and steadily throughout the 20th century and beyond. A strength in the collection is artworks by Native artists from western North America. In the mid-20th century, many Bay Area collectors donated Native American artworks, namely baskets from California and the Pacific Northwest. These holdings were greatly enhanced by a generous donation from the Thomas W. Weisel family, including historic and ancestral ceramics by Pueblo potters, textiles by Navajo (Diné) weavers, and carvings and regalia from the Pacific Northwest. Extraordinary examples of contemporary Pueblo pottery were donated to the Museums by Paul E. and Barbara H. Weiss and another transformative gift came from the estate of Thomas G. Fowler, who collected nearly 400 works by Alaska Native and Canadian Inuit artists, past and present.

The Art of the Americas collection also includes works by contemporary Native American artists, many of which will be on view for the new gallery installation in August 2025. The recent acquisition of Rose B. Simpson’s sculpture Heights I marked the first sculpture by a Native American artist on view in the Barbro Osher Sculpture Garden at the de Young. 

About the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

The de Young museum originated from the 1894 California Midwinter International Exposition in Golden Gate Park. The present copper-clad landmark building, designed by Herzog & de Meuron, opened in 2005. Reflecting an active conversation among cultures, perspectives, and time periods, the collections on view include American painting, sculpture, and decorative arts from the 17th to the 21st centuries; arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas; costume and textile arts; and international modern and contemporary art.

The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco are located on land unceded by the Ramaytush Ohlone, who are the original inhabitants of what is now the San Francisco Peninsula. The greater Bay Area is also the ancestral territory of other Ohlone peoples, as well as the Miwok, Yokuts, and Patwin. We acknowledge, recognize, and honor the Indigenous ancestors, elders, and descendants whose nations and communities have lived in the Bay Area over many generations and continue to do so today.

Media contact: 

Greta Gordon, Communications Manager, ggordon@famsf.org