We are pleased to announce that the July issue of The Nomadic Journal, an online publication of Doppel House Press (Los Angeles), features an essay on The Civilization of Llhuros by art historian Kathleen Spies. She begins:
“Created primarily from 1966 to 1972, Norman Daly’s The Civilization of Llhuros was a complex, multimedia art installation at the forefront of the shift to many postmodern and contemporary art practices that mark the era’s most significant contributions – from institutional critique and viewer engagement to the artist-as-anthropologist and the use of found objects as indexical evidence.”
Spies is among the first scholars to have studied the artifacts firsthand and conducted research in the Norman Daly Papers at the Cornell University Archives. This much-anticipated study is certain to open new avenues of interest in this vast, richly layered, and remarkably fertile body of work.
For those of us at Norman Daly Art, the past ten years have been consumed by the complex task of organizing and envisioning a future for artist Norman Daly’s major work of fictional archaeology, The Civilization of Llhuros, which was conceived and created at Cornell in 1967 and subsequent years.
We are pleased to announce that the long quest for a home for the collection, totaling nearly 150 art objects, has come to fruition with a gift by Daly’s son, David, to Cornell—specifically to the Anthropology Collaboratory’s collection.
The Collaboratory, which opened in May 2025, brings Cornell’s traditional anthropology collections and laboratories (along with the Llhuroscian artifacts) together in one place, making them more easily accessible to faculty, researchers, and students.
Post-war (1945-50) was a particularly significant period for the young Norman Daly, who found his first personal style as a painter, exhibited regularly in New York City galleries and received enthusiastic reviews in the mainstream press. He created dozens of works for his “Southwest Series” and “Mythical Animal Series,” inspired by his experiences in the American Southwest while an art student at the University of Colorado in the mid-1930s. Many of these works were sold to museums or collectors, while others continued to be included in American exhibitions in the years that followed.
Over the past decade, a number of significant acquisitions have been made by American museums.
Rollins Museum of Art
Winter Park, Florida
It was with great enthusiasm, that the Rollins Museum of Art acquired Norman Daly’s Bull and Cow in 2022.
“We are so thrilled to receive Bull and Cow,” Curator Gisela Carbonell explains. “The painting is a meaningful addition to the museum’s permanent collection. Formally, thematically, and historically, it aligns with our collecting priorities and our teaching mission. It adds significantly to our holdings which include important works from the 1940s that speak to the modernist aesthetic and show the shifts in American art that characterize this period. Bull and Cow, from the”‘Mythical Animal Series” will substantially add to the understanding of the period and provides an approach currently underrepresented in the collection.”
The Rollins Museum of Art is an academic museum located on the campus of Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. It serves as a cultural resource for thecollege and the Central Florida community by integrating art into a memorable learning experience.
Migrants, from Daly’s “Southwest Series” was acquired by the Mattatuck Museum in 2022.
According to Chief Curator Cecelia “Keffie” Feldman, “The fascinating work of Norman Daly is a perfect fit for the Mattatuck Museum’s interdisciplinary approach with which Daly’s artwork compellingly engages. Native American imagery in early career examples, like this piece, to his later work in fictive archaeology.” Migrants will serve as the basis for discussions about Primitivism in modernist art, and the ways in which Daly’s work fits into— and yet also subverts — such categorizations. Discussions could also consider issues of cultural appropriation and inspiration that are highly relevant to the Mattatuck’s collection,” Feldman continues. “It includes Native American art and material culture. Migrants also offers an opportunity for comparison between historic and modern examples of encaustic art, enhancing our ability to explore and showcase this important medium.”
The Mattatuck is a regional museum located in Waterbury, Connecticut. Its central mission is to showcase a rich blend of art, history, and community engagement, with a focus on local heritage and contemporary American art.
The Boca Raton Museum of Art, acquired Procession, a painting from Norman Daly’s “Southwest Series” in 2023. Curatorial staff selected the work to augment their historical mid-20th century gallery where they noted that Daly’s work will “fit very well among other accomplished artists who have been lesser known to the public.”
As the cultural heart of South Florida’s art scene, the Boca Raton Museum of Art and its art school play a significant role in promoting the visual arts and attract local citizens, scholars, and visitors from around the world.
In 2023, the Fairfield University Art Museum, a “young museum home to a small yet robust collection,” acquired Norman Daly’s Mare from the “Mythical Animal Series.”
“The gift of this painting by Norman Daly will have a great impact on our growing institution,” explains Director Carry Mack Weber, “and fills an important gap in our collection of Modern and Contemporary American art whose holdings will be complemented and enriched by sharing space with this painting.” Weber continues, “It will also be very impactful to our institution’s educational mission by allowing our students from all disciplines, as well as scholars, and the greater Fairfield community, close access to Daly’s remarkable work. Our expert faculty will also have the opportunity to study and teach from this object. We hope everyone will draw tremendous benefit from the opportunity to engage with Mare.”
The Dennos Museum Center acquired two paintings from Daly’s “Mythical Animal Series” in 2024—Ass and Birdand Cow and Bird No.1 .
“These two paintings by Norman Daly’s strongly complement existing holdings at the Dennos Museum Center,” explains curator Craig Hadley “ and will greatly increase the teaching and programmatic connections that can be made with our students, faculty, and community members. We look forward to sharing these two paintings with our museum visitors. ”
The Dennos Museum Center at Northwestern Michigan College is a premier cultural facility and one of the largest community college museums in the United States, most notable for its collection of Inuit art.
“The Ellen Noël Art Museum of the Permian Basin is delighted to welcome Hunter’s End by Norman Daly into our permanent collection,” says Chief Curator, Daniel Zies.
“Hunter’s End offers a unique lens into the art world of the 1940s, a period marked by the turbulence of World War II and the transformative shifts that followed in both global culture and artistic expression. This piece holds particular significance for the Museum as it deepens our collection’s representation of mid-20th century American art. It allows our visitors not only to appreciate Daly’s individual artistic contributions but also to gain a richer understanding of the broader movements that shaped American culture during this transformative time. With Hunter’s End (Southwest Series), we aim to offer our audiences a more complete and nuanced view of the many voices and visions that make up the narrative of American art history.”
The Ellen Noël Art Museum, located in Odessa, Texas, is a cultural institution that serves as a regional hub for visual arts. The museum offers a range of exhibitions, educational programs, and community outreach initiatives aimed at enhancing the appreciation of the visual arts in the West Texas region.
In 2012, the Asheville Art Museum in North Carolina acquired Norman Daly’s Tobias and the Angel for its collection of American art.
“Daly’s lifelong interest in mythology and religion helped him parse what it means to be human, and his approach to art demonstrates a profound understanding of art history and materiality,” reflected Amelia Brown, of the museum’s curatorial staff. “Referencing Renaissance panel paintings, this work recalls the biblical tale of Tobias, who is aided by the archangel Raphael in his quest to free his relative Sarah from demons and restore his father’s eyesight. Tobias and the Angel highlights the historical and cultural importance of faith, and is at home in our collection because it merges universal themes with meticulous craft.” We would also note that Daly traveled frequently to Italy to experience the art of the Renaissance. As an educator he introduced his students to pictorial analysis through the use of Renaissance paintings.
Tobias and the Angel was donated to the Asheville Museum in 2012 in memory of their mother, by the children of Elizabeth Cornell, artist and close friend of Norman Daly.
The Asheville Art Museum, located in downtown Asheville serves as a vibrant cultural hub for artistic exploration in Western North Carolina and is known for its focus on American art of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Cornell art professors Norman Daly and Kenneth Evett present a spontaneous pictorial analysis of Johannes Vermeer’s mid-17th century painting “Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window.” As accomplished artists themselves, as well as educators, Evett and Daly’s presentation weaves together keen technical observations with expressions of admiration for Vermeer’s artistry. While the two enthusiastically guide us in how to see a painting, consideration of symbolism or content is generally left to each viewer.
The original painting of “Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window” included a painting-within-a-painting of cupid on the wall behind the girl. This image was later over-painted leaving the mottled light-splashed wall we see in this video. A decade after the deaths of Daly and Evett, a conservator discovered the over-painted image of cupid while x-raying the painting. During the period from 2018-2021, the painting was cleaned and restored to its original composition.
“Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window” by Johannes Vermeer has been in the collection of Gemäldegalerie in Dresden, Germany since 1742.
The first formal connection between the Norman Daly Collection, held by the Cornell University Archives, and a university graduate course has recently taken place.
In the Spring of 2023, Professor Poppy McLeod had planned to take her Advanced Communication Theory class, a requirement for first-year PhD students, on a field trip to a physical environment that would illustrate a particular theory the class was studying from an interdisciplinary approach.
“At first I was thinking of taking them to a zoo,” McLeod said, “until I read the announcement that the Archives had acquired the Norman Daly collection, at the heart of which was ‘The Civilization of Llhuros.’ I thought ‘Wow, that’s it. That’s what I’m going to do!’”
Note: This work was acquired by the Atkinson Center for Sustainability at Cornell University. It will be installed in the late spring 2026.
In 1958, Norman Daly, a Cornell art professor, entered a contest sponsored by the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute in Utica, NY. The assignment was to create a mural design for a new bank in Utica. It is likely that Daly, who had a deep regard for the art of native peoples, chose the mural’s theme –The Legend of the Oneida Stone. Daly’s entry was the winning design for which he received two cash prizes. No documentation has been found concerning a proposed size for the completed mural, but since a commission from the bank did not come through the mural was never executed.
Daly’s demo mural consisted of five contiguous panels, forming a 16 inch by 8 foot-4-inch long modello. The panels, stored in Daly’s residence, were recently found while archival preparations were undertaken. Efforts are underway to find a permanent home for the mural design.
‘Rain Prayers’ by Norman Daly | Oil on Canvas | 1947
Looking back over Daly’s life and work, it is significant that he chose a theme that represents the Oneida Nation and the Travels of the Oneida Stone. As an art student at the University of Colorado he had immersed himself in and acquired a life-long reverence for the art of the Native Americans of the Southwest, particularly the Pueblo Nations. Daly’s striking Southwest series of paintings (1945-48) is a substantial homage to the arts of Native peoples which Daly described as having made “splendid artistic contributions.” It seems perfectly fitting that through his mural design Norman Daly would honor one of New York State’s Native American Nations.
EARLIER THIS YEAR, the Rollins Museum of Art in Winter Park, Florida acquired Norman Daly’s 1949 painting “Bull and Cow”. The donation was facilitated by Museum Exchange. Conservation of the painting was undertaken by West Lake Conservators. Crating and shipment arrangements were handled by Naglee Fine Arts.
“Bull and Cow” from the Mythical Animal series (1949)
We are happy to announce that the current Rollins Museum e-Newsletter announces an exhibition (January 14-April 2, 2023) of five new acquisitions which includes “Bull and Cow”, boldly featured on the newsletter’s front page. Aside from its use in educational programs at Rollins, the painting will likely be shown in context as part of themed exhibitions in the future.
Rollins Museum of Art displays a sustained commitment to acquiring works in various media and time periods, and by artists of diverse backgrounds, in alignment with their teaching mission and the curriculum of a liberal arts education.
This fall, Cornell University Library’s Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections acquired a trove of archival materials documenting the creation of this fictional society, giving researchers and historians a detailed view into a unique project that is both an absurdist critique of academic anthropology and an attempt to draw crucial connections between the past and the present, highlighting the challenges – spiritual, political and environmental – that all societies struggle to address.
“As an archivist, and someone who’s in charge of preserving the legacy of Cornell faculty, I saw right away that this was a collection that would be wonderful to have,” said Evan Earle ’02, M.S. ’14, the Dr. Peter J. Thaler ‘56 University Archivist. “It documents just one tiny little sliver of Cornell’s history. But it’s a fascinating one.”
We recently discovered this one-of-its-kind painting by Daly, named it and included it with his Southwest Series collection. For his vast work of fictive art, “The Civilization of Llhuros” (1972), Daly created many such fragments said to be from one of the five Llhuroscian archaeological periods. Most likely created around 1946 as a spin-off of a traditionally framed painting by Daly entitled “Composition” (whereabouts unknown) The fragment was found in Daly’s residence in 2022 while preparing materials for the new Norman Daly Collection at the Cornell University Archives. There is a distinct possibility that Daly turned the painting itself into this object.
Post-war (1945-50) was a particularly significant period for the young Norman Daly, who found his first personal style as a painter, exhibited regularly in New York City galleries and received enthusiastic reviews in the mainstream press. He created dozens of works for his “Southwest Series” and “Mythical Animal Series,” inspired by his experiences in the American Southwest while an art student at the University of Colorado in the mid-1930s. Many of these works were sold to museums or collectors, while others continued to be included in American exhibitions in the years that followed.
