Faust Gallery
Lovena Ohl Foundation
Supporting American Indian Art & Artists
For more than four decades, the Lovena Ohl Foundation has funded American Indian artists, schools, exhibitions, and scholarship. It was founded by Lovena Ohl, one of the great champions of Native art in the Southwest, and is carried on today by her family at Faust Gallery.
“I believe Indian art is the future. It is America’s art. That is why I have worked so hard to promote it.”
Lovena Ohl
- Founded 1978, by Lovena Ohl and John Van Itallie
- Contributed More than $500,000 to American Indian art and artists
- Expenses $6.90 of every $1,000 received; officers take no compensation
Lovena Ohl
Lovena Ohl. Courtesy of the Scottsdale Historical Society.
Lovena Ohl came to Phoenix from Pennsylvania in 1946, a young widow caring for a seriously ill nephew. Over the next four decades she became one of the leading authorities on American Indian art. Year after year she traveled the reservations of Arizona and New Mexico, building direct relationships with painters, sculptors, jewelers, weavers, and potters.
She managed the Heard Museum shop, which Sunset magazine named one of the finest in the nation. After she opened her own Scottsdale gallery in the late 1970s, Forbes called her the “doyenne of Southwest Indian arts.” She was among the first to recognize Charles Loloma, and her clients came from across the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia. Shortly before her death she received the Arizona Governor’s Art Award for her contributions to American Indian artists.
“Aunt Lovena never had any customers, she only had friends,” her nephew recalls. In a tribute in Indian Country Today, James Covarrubias remembered her as “the lady who never turned away the artists who had heard of the Lady Who Loved the People.”
The Foundation
A year after opening her Marshall Way gallery, Lovena Ohl and her partner John Van Itallie established the Foundation in 1978. Its mission has never changed: to promote American Indian art and help deserving artists develop their talent. In 1996, stewardship passed to the Faust family and Faust Gallery.
The Foundation supports both individual artists and larger projects, with awards based on need and on its ability to provide full or partial support. It is, to our knowledge, the only fund of its kind sponsored by an art gallery.
Projects We Have Supported
Hopitutuqaiki School, Hopi Reservation
Founded in 2005, the Hopitutuqaiki (Ho’pee’two’two’kaw’ki) School offers arts apprenticeships rooted in Hopi culture while meeting state educational standards. Students have ranged in age from seven to 68, and classes include overlay jewelry, weaving, carving, clay sculpture, and pottery, along with an arts-based preschool. Students have gone on to win awards at Santa Fe Indian Market and the Tuhisma Art Exhibition at Kykotsmovi.
Tony Da: Book & Museum Exhibition
The Foundation funded the first definitive book on Tony Da (1940–2008), grandson of Maria Martinez and one of the great innovators of Pueblo pottery—among the first to incise designs into clay, inlay turquoise, and combine multiple clays on one surface. Written by Charles S. King and Richard Spivey, it was published by Rio Nuevo Press in 2011. Da had a close connection to Lovena and her gallery.
Charles Loloma Retrospective, Heard Museum
The Foundation helped underwrite the 2006 Charles Loloma retrospective at the Heard Museum in Phoenix. Lovena was one of the first to recognize Loloma, arguably the most influential Native American jeweler of the 20th century.
Arizona: Nations and Art
In 2009 the Foundation helped publish Arizona: Nations and Art, written by Scottsdale student Annica Benning. The book introduces young readers to Native American art forms, tribal lands, and the Code Talkers, with works by artists including Harvey Begay and Dan Namingha.
Artists & Cultural Exchange
- Quannah Fireshaker — The Foundation’s first individual recipient, a Ponca painter who spent a year on her father’s reservation photographing, interviewing, and painting tribal elders.
- 1990 Rosemary Lonewolf (Santa Clara Pueblo) presented at the first Sino-American Conference on Women’s Issues in Beijing. “Lovena and the Foundation showed me that the world is full of opportunities, not obstacles.”
- 1991 Navajo–France exchange — brought French art students to the Navajo Reservation and Navajo students to L’École des Beaux-Arts in Grenoble.
Awards, Exhibitions & Education
- SWAIA Lifetime Achievement Awards — honoring artists including Maria Martinez, Allan Houser, Pop Chalee, Lloyd Kiva New, and Fritz Scholder.
- Jewels of the Southwest — jewelry exhibition.
- Arizona State University West — summer arts program for American Indian high school students.
How the Foundation Is Run
The Foundation is run for almost nothing. Over a ten-year period, expenses came to $6.90 for every $1,000 received—an expense ratio of less than one percent, including investment costs. Foundation president William A. Faust Sr., a retired institutional money manager at UMB Bank of Kansas City, manages the funds at virtually no charge, and no Foundation officer takes compensation. Nearly every dollar contributed goes directly to artists and projects.
“Her knowledge, her discriminating taste, her appreciation of indigenous art forms, and her singular dedication to the efforts of native artists.”
N. Scott Momaday, on Lovena Ohl
Support the Foundation
Donations support American Indian artists, schools, and projects. To give, or to learn more, contact Bill Faust.