Sanford Plummer

Sanford Plummer (Ga-yo-gwa-doke; November 1, 1905 - June 1974) (Seneca) was a Native American narrative watercolor painter from New York state. He painted works portraying traditional life and culture of the Seneca and people of other Iroquois nations. His works are held by the Iroquois Indian Museum, as well as Buffalo Museum of Science, Rochester Museum and Science Center, and the Newark Museum.

Background Sanford Plummer was born on 1 November 1905 on the Allegany Reservation, located mostly in Cattaraugus, New York, in the Seneca Nation. His parents were Clarence Plummer and Nellie Kennedy. He was born into the Seneca Wolf Clan, his mother's clan, as the Iroquois have a matrilineal kinship system.

He went to New York City for a formal art education at the Beaux-Arts of New York and the New York Academy of Art. After his studies, Plummer returned to upstate, where he lived in Gowanda.

Art career Highly skilled at narrative art, Plummer painted traditional Iroquois lifeways, ceremonies, and representation of oral history, such as his piece Law, the Reading of the Wampum. By 1934, the TERA program arranged for Native art to be distributed to museum collections. Another participating artist was Seneca woodcarver Jesse Cornplanter. The program created a temporary tribal museum at the Thomas Indian School and Orphan Asylum. After budgetary shortfalls, this was the first project to be eliminated.

Legacy Sanford Plummer died in Gowanda, New York in June 1974.

The Newark Museum has a substantial collection of Plummer's works on paper. These include watercolor paintings, pencil illustrations, and a design for a book cover. The collection was donated to that museum by IBM from its holdings in 1962. The Rochester Museum and Science Center and Buffalo Museum of Science also hold his paintings in their collections.