December 30, 2002
Annual faculty lecture will paint history of Northwest Coast Indian art
Ever since 1774, when the Spanish explorer Juan Perez made the first recorded contact with the native people of the Northwest Coast, the outside world has been drawn to their artistic creations. Perez and James Cook, the English explorer who circumnavigated Vancouver Island four years later, were the earliest gatherers of Northwest Coast Indian art.
A full appreciation and understanding of this art — an astounding array that includes totem poles, masks, ceremonial objects, canoes, boxes and baskets — would have to wait for nearly two centuries.
This tale of discovery is the topic for the 27th annual University of Washington faculty lecture to be delivered by Bill Holm at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 14 in Kane Hall, room 130, on the UW’s Seattle campus. Holm is professor emeritus of art history and Burke Museum emeritus curator of Northwest Coast Indian Art. His topic for the free lecture, which is open to the general public, is “The Exploration of Northwest Coast Indian Art 1774-2003.”
Holm is a noted scholar, perhaps most well-known for his seminal 1965 book “Northwest Coast Indian Art: An Analysis of Form,” which has been called a Rosetta stone in understanding the art produced along the west coast of the United States and Canada. He also taught art history and anthropology at the UW and is artist in his own right whose work focuses on Northwest Coast, Plateau and Plains Indians.
“I want people to come away from my lecture with an idea of how this art has been perceived over the generations and what is going on today to understand it,” said Holm, who retired from the UW in 1985 to devote more time to his own artistic expression.
Holm’s talk will touch on how at various times Northwest Coast Indian art, which is so highly prized today, was considered to be grotesque or nothing more than souvenirs to be collected and was in danger of dying out in the mid 20th Century.
At first, Europeans looked at this art as being ugly and deformed, Holm said, and the idea of art being associated with Northwest Indian objects was not broached until the
American anthropologist Franz Boas did the first serious studies of Northwest Indian art in the 1880s. Holm added that the Western world’s conception of this art began changing when the surrealists became interested in it and their ideas spread.
“People got the idea that art didn’t have to be a pretty picture and that it could be powerful,” Holm said. “Totem poles and masks appealed to some people because of their power.”
Even so, it wasn’t until the mid-20th Century that people began to study the aesthetics of different tribal styles. At the same time, there were signs that Northwest Indian tribal cultures, including their art, were fading away. These fears proved to be unfounded, and today there are many young people involved in building back their tribal cultures and many artists doing fine work, he said.
Holm’s own interest in Indians began when he was a child growing up in Montana, and continued when he moved to Seattle in 1937 and first visited the Burke Museum with its treasure trove of Indian objects.
“The Burke staff was very indulgent and let me hang out and go through the storerooms,” he said.
At the Burke, he was befriended by Erna Gunther, the museum’s director, who introduced him to her Makah friends in Neah Bay and took him to spirit dances on the Swinomish reservation near LaConner. Over the years he became more and more interested in Indian cultures, made numerous friends and made his version of many Northwest Coast Indian objects after his careful study of originals.
“The forms in this art go back about a thousand years. By the time Juan Perez made first contact, it was full blown,” said Holm. “Today artists tend to want to stretch boundaries. But it is best to have a solid foundation in the old ways and know the rules. Then you can stretch them. The rules are like a grammar and vocabulary. They link together to make sense, but they are not art. The artist needs to know the vocabulary and then do something with it.”
This year’s faculty lecture coincides with the Burke Museum’s lecture series, contemporary issues in Northwest Coast Native American art.
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For more information, contact Holm at bholm@u.washington.edu
