Native Art and Artists Through the Lens of Jerry Jacka
By Chadd Scott on
Jerry Jacka (1934-2017) walked a tightrope few other photographers or artists are able to, that of a white man recording the Native world. He did so sensitively, authentically, accurately, and most importantly, with the blessing of the people he photographed, for more than 50 years.
Born and raised on a ranch in New River, AZ, 35 miles north of downtown Phoenix, Jacka began winning awards for his pictures as a teenager. Everything about Arizona fascinated him from the landscapes to the trading posts, and especially, the region’s Indigenous people and their artwork. His fascination began by finding pottery shards around his home. In high school, he visited the Navajo and Hopi with a YMCA group sponsored by longtime Arizona senator and 1964 Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater.
Over his long career, thousands of Jacka’s pictures of Native artists from the Southwest and their artworks were published. His personal photography collection of Native Americans, their land, and art was unsurpassed.

Jerry Jacka, photograph of Shonto Begay, 1992. Gift of the Jacka family. Copyright Heard Museum.
In 2024, Jacka’s estate passed that archive along to the Heard Museum in Phoenix, one of the nation’s most esteemed Native American arts and culture institutions. The Heard begins sharing that tremendous gift with an exhibition, “Storyteller: The Photography of Jerry Jacka,” on view through September 8, 2025. The presentation features Jacka’s portraits of iconic Native artists paired with examples of their work from the museum’s collection.
From Maria Martinez to Charles Loloma, Allan Houser, Shonto Begay, Al Qöyawayma, Annie Antone, Camille Nampeyo, Dan Namingha, Jacka photographed a “who’s who” of Indigenous artists from around the Southwest during the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
"Sometimes we're accused as photographers of exploiting the Native people, and boy, I just hope I haven't done that,” Jacka was quoted as saying on the Heard Museum website in advance of an exhibition of his photography there in 2000. “It's always a relationship with them. You start working with their art and before you know it, you're meeting their family and it becomes a relationship and friendship, not a business relationship. Those friendships continue.”
Those relationships which became friendships were key to Jacka receiving permission to photograph Native people on Native land, permission rarely granted.
In December of 1985, Jerry Jacka photographed Hopi artist Charles Loloma with his Porsche and Loloma license plate. Gift of the Jacka Family. Copyright Heard Museum
“He would build these relationships, and he would tell me stories about how he would go up there and ask to make a photograph, and he'd be allowed to, but then the next time he came up, the subjects of those photos really wanted to see them,” Arizona Highways magazine editor Robert Stieve told KJZZ radio in Phoenix shortly after Jacka’s passing. “He was really good about making sure that on his next visit, he would deliver those photographs, make prints of them, and share them. He talked about being part of birthing ceremonies and things that none of us would ever get into just walking in, much less walking in with a camera.”
Jacka had more than 1,500 images published in Arizona Highways books and magazines beginning in 1958.
His being welcomed back time and again, decade after decade, by the Native people he photographed is testament to the care Jacka took when doing so.
“Photography isn't necessarily embraced by a lot of the native cultures, especially the Hopis, the Navajos have restrictions as well, but Jerry, because of who he was, he had so much respect for the people, and built relationships with them, and then they, in turn, had this great respect for him. He was able to endear himself to those people,” Stieve continued. “As a result, he made photographs of things that had never really been seen before. Although some of those Native ceremonies and things that are still happening today are part of the culture, a lot of that has sort of gone away, unfortunately, but he documented it, so we have this historic record of, in particular, the Hopis, the Navajos and the Apaches.”
Jerry Jacka photographed Charles Loloma setting a turquoise stone in his workshop, c. 1975. Gift of the Jacka Family. Copyright Heard Museum.
Stieve and Arizona Highways photo editor Jeff Kida are participating in a virtual talk as part of the “Storyteller” exhibition on February 12 where they’ll be reflecting on the artist’s life, their friendship with him, and the storytelling magic of a Jacka photo. The talk is free, but registration is required.
Jacka’s relationship with the Heard goes all the way back to 1974 when he was enlisted to shoot photographs for a book published by the museum about the Goldwater katsina doll collection. The relationship will continue long into the future now that the Heard houses his archive. His landscape photography will be shown in the Heard Museum library and additionally used in upcoming exhibitions, including one about trading posts.
“Every great artist has a connection to him, one way or another. Even the old Navajo ladies who don't speak a word of English know who Jerry is,” Bruce McGee, one time manager of the Heard Museum Shop, said in advance of the Heard’s 2000 Jacka exhibition. "He captures the essence of the piece, not for Jerry Jacka, but for the artist.”
A lesson for today’s white photographers and artists depicting Native life and Native people.