An Extraordinary Exhibition of Northwest Coast Treasures
A featured article in the Vancouver Sun praises Past to Present, an exhibition in collaboration with Equinox Gallery, as ‘a stupendous show of museum-grade Northwest Coast art’
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Figure
Central Coast Salish
possibly Halkomelem
possibly Halkomelem
late 19th /early 20th century
wood, red, black and yellow paint, shell inlay
Inventory # CN1883-2
Sold
acquired by The Audain Art Museum, Whistler, BC
PROVENANCE
June Bedford Collection, London, United Kingdom
Sotheby's, New York, May 18, 2000, lot 680
EXHIBITED
"Incessant Renovation", The Art of the Native Peoples of the Northwest Coast of America, Canada House Cultural Centre, Trafalgar Square, London, UK, March 19 - May 28, 1993
PUBLISHED
Donald Ellis Gallery catalogue, 2001, pg. 19
RELATED EXAMPLES
Museum of Natural History, No. 16/4921 - See: From the Land of the Totem Poles, Jonaitis, University of Washington Press, 1988, pl. 84
Denver Art Museum, No. 1941.273 - See: Native American Art in the Denver Art Museum, CO, University of WA Press, Seattle, 1979, pl. 423
Art of the Northwest Coast Indians, Inverarity, University of California Press, 1950, pl. 241
This wonderfully sculpted figure relates to a group of objects believed to represent shamans' spirit helpers. Variously called guardian or power figures, and seen occasionally in the form of wands or rattles, these objects are among the most striking forms of Coast Salish sculpture. More frequently found among the southern Salish groups of coastal Washington, this figure most closely relates to a group of carved heads collected by James Teit in 1900 from the Thomson, an Upper Fraser Valley Salish group (see: Wingert, Paul S., American Indian Sculpture: A Study of the Northwest Coast. New York: Hacker Books, 1976, pl. 26).
Featured in the Press
Related Exhibitions
Past to Present: Important Works from the First Peoples of the Northwest Coast
In collaboration with Equinox Gallery
June 9 – July 7, 2006
Equinox Gallery, Vancouver, Canada
See More Past to Present: Important Works from the First Peoples of the Northwest Coast
