Navajo Saddle Blankets: Textiles to Ride in the American West

Navajo saddle blankets are among the most underappreciated art forms in the American Southwest, the Cinderella of Navajo textiles. Saddle blankets have played a key role in Navajo life both as utilitarian objects and as a force in the economic sustainability of modern Navajo life. They represent a material link between Navajo weavers and traders. This modest textile has found a context in the cattle industry, inside rural cabins, on the floors of eastern bungalows, on the walls of art museums, and even on horseback. It has served countless cultural and utilitarian demands placed on it over the last century and a half, with no sunset in sight.