The 50th anniversary edition of this classic work on the art of
Northwest Coast Indians now offers color illustrations for a new
generation of readers along with reflections from contemporary Northwest
Coast artists about the impact of this book.
The masterworks of Northwest Coast Native artists are admired today as
among the great achievements of the world's artists. The painted and
carved wooden screens, chests and boxes, rattles, crest hats, and other
artworks display the complex and sophisticated northern Northwest Coast
style of art that is the visual language used to illustrate inherited
crests and tell family stories.
In the 1950s Bill Holm, a graduate student of Dr. Erna Gunther, former
Director of the Burke Museum, began a systematic study of northern
Northwest Coast art. In 1965, after studying hundreds of bentwood boxes
and chests, he published Northwest Coast Indian Art: An Analysis of
Form. This book is a foundational reference on northern Northwest Coast
Native art. Through his careful studies, Bill Holm described this visual
language using new terminology that has become part of the established
vocabulary that allows us to talk about works like these and understand
changes in style both through time and between individual artists'
styles. Holm examines how these pieces, although varied in origin,
material, size, and purpose, are related to a surprising degree in the
organization and form of their two-dimensional surface decoration.
The author presents an incisive analysis of the use of color, line, and
texture; the organization of space; and such typical forms as ovoids,
eyelids, U forms, and hands and feet. The evidence upon which he bases
his conclusions constitutes a repository of valuable information for all
succeeding researchers in the field.
Replaces ISBN 9780295951027
