Joseph M. Sanchez is an artist

Artist

An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...

 and museum

Museum

A museum is an institution that cares for a collection of artifacts and other objects of scientific, artistic, cultural, or historical importance and makes them available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary. Most large museums are located in major cities...

 curator

Curator

A curator is a manager or overseer. Traditionally, a curator or keeper of a cultural heritage institution is a content specialist responsible for an institution's collections and involved with the interpretation of heritage material...

.

Biography

Although born Taos Pueblo

Taos Pueblo

Taos Pueblo is an ancient pueblo belonging to a Taos speaking Native American tribe of Pueblo people. It is approximately 1000 years old and lies about north of the modern city of Taos, New Mexico, USA...

, Sanchez was raised in Whiteriver, Arizona

Whiteriver, Arizona

Whiteriver is a census-designated place in Navajo County, Arizona, United States. The population was 5,220 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Whiteriver is located at ....

 on the White Mountain Apache Reservation, and was named by the Ojibway.

Sanchez lived in Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 from the early to mid 1970s, and was a founding member of the "Professional Native Indian Artists Association”, otherwise known as the Indian Group of Seven

Indian Group of Seven

The Professional Native Indian Artists Incorporation, better known as the Indian Group of Seven, was a group of professional Indian artist from Canada, founded in November 1973....

. In Winnipeg

Winnipeg

Winnipeg is the capital and largest city of Manitoba, Canada, and is the primary municipality of the Winnipeg Capital Region, with more than half of Manitoba's population. It is located near the longitudinal centre of North America, at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers .The name...

 he met Daphne Odjig

Daphne Odjig

Daphne Odjig, CM, LL.D. , is an influential Canadian First Nations artist of Odawa-Potawatomi-English heritage. Her many awards include the Order of Canada and the Governor General's Award. Her painting is often characterized as Woodlands Style...

, who had opened up the Warehouse Gallery in the early 1970s (now the Wahsa Gallery and currently owned by Gary Scherbain, the Winnipeg Free Press Reporter who originally dubbed the PNIAA the "Indian Group of Seven"). Since Odjig was helping him out and working with him at the time, he became a member of the Professional Indian Native Artists' Association by association. He exhibited in group shows in Canada, Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, and the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

.

Sanchez returned to the United States in 1976 and, meeting new artists, formed two collectives near Phoenix. He worked at the Scottsdale Center for the Arts, the Phoenix Art Museum

Phoenix art museum

The Phoenix Art Museum is the Southwest United States' largest art museum for visual art. Located in Phoenix, Arizona, the museum is . It displays international exhibitions alongside its comprehensive collection of more than 18,000 works of American, Asian, European, Latin American, Western...

, and most recently at the Institute of American Indian Arts

Institute of American Indian Arts

The Institute of American Indian Arts is a college focused on Native American art. It is situated in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It is congressionally chartered, and was created by an executive order of former American President John F. Kennedy in 1962...

 in Santa Fe

Santa Fe, New Mexico

Santa Fe is the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico. It is the fourth-largest city in the state and is the seat of . Santa Fe had a population of 67,947 in the 2010 census...

. Since 2001 Sanchez has been the curator at the IAIA Museum, and has been acting director there since 2008.

Exhibitions

• 1975 Dominion Gallery, Montreal, Quebec (see Indian Group of Seven
  Indian Group of Seven
  The Professional Native Indian Artists Incorporation, better known as the Indian Group of Seven, was a group of professional Indian artist from Canada, founded in November 1973....
  
  )
• 1975 Wallack Gallery, Ottawa, Ontario
• 1975 Art Emporium, Vancouver, B.C.
• 1990s Spirits of the Sun exhibition in Phoenix
• 2009 Perversions of the Curator:a minor retrospective February 13 – March 15, 2009