Myaamia Center Collaborates on Exhibition at Palace of Versailles
The Myaamia Center, through its assistant director George Ironstrack, has served as a key consultant on a new, historic exhibition at the Palace of Versailles featuring 300-year-old robes created by Native American communities.
OXFORD, Ohio – The Myaamia Center at Miami University is playing a key role in a new, historic exhibition at the Palace of Versailles in France that features ceremonial robes created more than 300 years ago by Native American communities. George Ironstrack, assistant director of the Myaamia Center and citizen of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma, has served as a consultant on the exhibition, which opens on November 23, 2025.
The exhibition at Versailles is the result of a partnership with the Musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac in Paris, and will display some of the most famous existing 18th-century minohsayaki ‘hide paintings’, including a robe with an iconic thunderbird image. The exhibition, which runs through May 3, 2026, coincides with the 300th anniversary of a 1725 diplomatic visit to France by several Native American chiefs.
Ironstrack’s participation stems from the “Reclaiming Stories: (Re)connecting Indigenous Painted Hides to Communities through Collaborative Conversations” project. This multi-year collaboration, funded by Humanities Without Walls and the Mellon Foundation, is led by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and includes partners from the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma and the Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma.
The project focuses on four minohsayaki ‘painted hide robes’ held in the Paris museum’s collection. While these specific robes were created by ancestors of the Peewaalia ‘Peoria,’ the Miami Tribe has been a dedicated partner in the research due to the deep, historical ties between the two nations that extend back into time immemorial. The two nations share language, kinship and have a long history of intermarriage. The robes provide a meaningful entry point into the artistic designs and processes that the Myaamia community would have shared.
Ironstrack, along with other project collaborators and tribal citizens from both communities, will travel to France to attend the exhibition opening. The trip will also include a visit to the Palace of Fontainebleau to commemorate the 1725 delegation of chiefs, who met with King Louis XV on November 25 of that year.
“I’ve been looking at pictures of these minohsayaki since I was a teenager,” said Ironstrack. “At that time, it would have seemed like a wild dream that I would have the opportunity to visit with these awe-inspiring works of ancestral art in person, much less help curate their exhibition at Versailles. I’m so grateful to the staff of the Musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chiraq and Versailles, our friends at the University of Illinois, and especially our relatives in the Peoria Tribe for this opportunity.”
The "Reclaiming Stories" project has supported multiple research trips to Paris, as well as summer workshops for tribal members on the traditions of hide painting, tanning, and tattooing.
About the Myaamia Center at Miami University
The Myaamia Center is a Miami Tribe of Oklahoma initiative located at Miami University that serves the needs of Myaamia people through in-depth research and educational development that assists tribal educational initiatives aimed at the preservation of language and culture.
