A Legacy: Honoring Ben Nighthorse Campbell

This Santa Fe Indian Market, Sorrel Sky Gallery celebrates the life and enduring legacy of Ben Nighthorse Campbell (1933–2025): Northern Cheyenne chief, Olympic athlete, United States senator, and, in these rooms above all, a master jeweler. For us, the celebration is deeply personal. Gallery owner Shanan Campbell is his daughter, and on Thursday, August 13, she will step away from the reception to share an intimate talk honoring her father and the artistry that shaped his remarkable life.

Ben Nighthorse passed away peacefully at his ranch near Ignacio, Colorado, in December 2025, at the age of 92. He leaves behind a body of work as singular as the life that produced it, and Ben Nighthorse jewelry remains available exclusively at Sorrel Sky.

Few American lives traveled as far as his. Born in Auburn, California, in 1933, Campbell grew up in hardship, spending part of his childhood in an orphanage while his mother was ill. He found his footing through discipline and craft. After serving in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War, he earned a degree in fine arts and physical education from San Jose State University, then moved to Tokyo to train in judo. He became a three-time national champion and captained the first United States Olympic judo team at the 1964 Tokyo Games, in the sport's Olympic debut.

He came to his Cheyenne heritage as a young man, traveling to the Northern Cheyenne homeland in Montana, where he was enrolled with his father's people and later received the name Nighthorse. In time, he would serve as one of the forty-four Chiefs of the Northern Cheyenne. His path into public life was almost accidental, yet it carried him from the Colorado statehouse to the U.S. House and, in 1992, to the United States Senate, where he became the first Native American to serve in more than sixty years and the first to chair the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. Among the accomplishments closest to his heart were the creation of the National Museum of the American Indian and the establishment of the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site, a place bound to his own family's history.

Through all of it, one thing never changed. He was an artist first and last.

Campbell learned metalwork as a boy, at his father's side, flattening silver coins on the railroad tracks near their home and shaping them into something to trade. That resourcefulness never left his work. Because his roots were Northern Cheyenne rather than Southwestern, his jewelry was never bound by regional tradition. He built his own contemporary language instead, laminating metals, setting high-grade stones with lapidary precision, and drawing on techniques he had absorbed during his years in Japan.

His signature was the Morning Star, the emblem of the great Cheyenne chief Morning Star, also known as Dull Knife, whose courage helped secure the Northern Cheyenne homeland. The tribe granted Campbell permission to use the Morning Star as his maker's stamp, and it appears on every piece he made. Noble animals run through his designs as well, none more than the eagle, master of the sky, in keeping with the belief that to wear an animal's image is to carry something of its spirit.

Over the decades, he earned wide acclaim, originated his own Painted Mesa, Rock Art, and Running Horse styles, and saw his work exhibited at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, a museum he was instrumental in bringing to fruition as a legislator. 

"What I do with my hands is really an extension of what the creator wills," he once said. "The only person that can create is the creator."

His signature pieces tell that story in miniature. The Eagle Pendant sets that outspread silhouette in gold with diamonds, rubies, and sapphires. The Spirit of America buckle and bolo translate national feeling into the language of Native American metalwork, heirlooms made to be handed down. To own a piece of Nighthorse, as the gallery has long said, is to own a piece of history.

Sorrel Sky will gather to celebrate his legacy during Indian Market at our Santa Fe gallery on West Palace Avenue. The Legacy of Ben Nighthorse reception takes place Thursday, August 13, from 5:00 to 7:30 PM, with a focus on Native artists Ray Tracey, Shane Hendren, Victoria Adams, Jeremy Salazar, and Kim Seyesnem Obrzut, and with special guests to be announced. At 6:00 PM, Shanan Campbell will give her presentation honoring her father.

Ben Nighthorse jewelry is found exclusively at Sorrel Sky Gallery. We would be honored to share his work with you, whether you have known it for years or are discovering the Morning Star for the first time.

Sorrel Sky Gallery Locations:

Santa Fe: 125 W Palace Avenue, Santa Fe, NM 87501 | (505) 501-6555 Durango: 828 Main Avenue, Durango, CO 81301 | (970) 247-3555 New York (SoHo): 419 West Broadway, New York, NY 10012 | (917) 262-0662 East Hampton: 58 Park Place, East Hampton, NY 11937 | (631) 907-4143

Santa Fe and Durango hours: Daily 9:30 AM to 5:30 PM (Sunday 10 AM to 5 PM). New York and East Hampton hours: Daily 10 AM to 6 PM

Prices and availability are current as of writing and subject to change. Event dates are drawn from public announcements and should be confirmed with organizers before you plan a visit.