“Tell Clyfford I Said ‘Hi’”: An Exhibition Curated by Children of the Colville Confederated Tribes is a collaborative exhibition co-curated with youth from the Colville Confederated Tribes in Washington State, on view from September 19, 2025–May 10, 2026, at the Clyfford Still Museum. It highlights the perspectives of Colville children on Clyfford Still’s depictions of their ancestors and their home, as well as his abstract works. Installed in all nine of the Museum’s galleries, this exhibition investigates six themes identified by our co-curators: Family & Culture, Connection, Storytelling, Wilderness, Love, and Paint & Color.

Clyfford Still Museum’s curatorial and education staff worked with young children (ages three years to fourteen years old) and teachers from partner schools and childcare centers on the Colville Confederated Tribes Reservation on every level of the exhibition, including artwork selection and arrangement, object interpretation and gallery text, and interactive space.

This exhibition continues CSM’s efforts to foster engagement with its collections by sharing authority on Still’s work with the Museum’s critical communities and is an occasion to bridge various gaps—physical, cultural, metaphorical—that exist between Indigenous communities and the traditional art museum space.

Background and Development

While working as an instructor at the Washington State College Fine Arts Department, Clyfford Still assisted in founding a summer art colony for WSC community members and became one of its first instructors in the summers of 1937 and 1938. Instructors held classes in Nespelem on the Colville Reservation and Toppenish on the Yakama Indian Reservation in Washington. The Clyfford Still Museum collections include three paintings on canvas, over 85 drawings and sketches on paper, nearly 20 documentary photographs, and other archival ephemera documenting Still’s time in the area. These objects reveal how Still’s experiences with the Colville community profoundly impacted his work for years.

While culturally distinct and diverse, the twelve bands of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation—Chelan, Chief Joseph Band of Nez Perce, Colville, Entiat, Lakes, Methow, Moses-Columbia, Nespelem, Okanogan, Palus, San Poil, and Wenatchi—share cultural practices and 1.4 million acres of land. Though CSM has focused past exhibitions and programs on Still’s work from Nespelem since 2013, this exhibition seeks to extend and deepen CSM’s relationship with the Colville Tribal community.

Co-curated with children in the Colville Confederated Tribes in northeastern Washington, this exhibition explores Clyfford Still’s work through the perspectives of children, some of whom are direct descendants of individuals Still portrayed in his art. “Tell Clyfford I Said ‘Hi’” centers young Indigenous voices by engaging them to collaboratively develop an exhibition that builds upon previous evaluation, research, and CSM exhibitions.