is exhibition explores an encounter between French modernist painter, (1869–1954), and the spiritual universe of Arctic peoples. Seen through the windows of his mask-like drawings, which were modeled on photographs of Inuit and Kalaalliit people, we nd an expansive Arctic reality. Matisse’s introduction to the indigenous arts of Alaska — which came through his family — struck a deep chord in him, and resonated in his own confrontations with mortality and legacy.

In this exhibition, we present the drawings and prints that Matisse generated as he explored portraits of Arctic people. ese were the result of an invitation in 1947 by his daughter, Marguerite, to illustrate a book written by her husband Georges Duthuit, titled Une fête en Cimmérie. Alaskan masks from Duthuit’s collection, as well as the books and photographs that served as source materials for Matisse, are also included. Additionally, we present a series of aquatints Matisse created and referred to as “masks” and works relating to the creation of the Chapel of the Rosary in Vence, France, all of which were made contemporaneously with the portraits of Arctic people.

In parallel, this exhibition includes a comprehensive selection of masks from the Central Yup’ik people of Alaska, who created the masks so admired by Matisse and other artists. eir presentation here is an historic occasion. Created originally in pairs and related groups, many traditional Yup’ik masks were separated early in their collecting history. We present an unprecedented number of reunited masks and dance objects and, for the rst time, identify some of the artists who made them. We recognize them here as masters on a par with Matisse, their distant contemporary. MATISSE FAMILY AND MASKS

e upheaval of World War II sparked a series of events a ecting Matisse. Art historian and writer Georges Duthuit, husband of Marguerite Matisse, was in New York on a lecture tour in 1939, and became stranded by the war’s outbreak. Duthuit was soon joined by a growing group of artists and intellectuals escaping Europe. Feeling isolated in the harsh city, they located each other and pursued a common passion, Native American art, especially that from Alaska. ese artists had previously organized exhibitions in on the subject. As they wandered about New York, they encountered the impressive collections of Alaskan art in museums, and began to assemble personal collections of Native American art, which returned to France with them after the war. Installation view from the exhibition “Indian Art of the United States” January 22 - April 27, 1941, Museum of Modern Art, New York Photograph by Soichi Sunami, 1941 In the case at left are two masks collected by Georges Duthuit during the war years in New York. ey are seen here with a third matching mask. All three masks represent Iralum Yua, Spirit of the Moon-Woman. While they are expressions

Mrs. Roosevelt and Fred Kabotie, Hopi painter of spirit entities, they are artistically very much like Photograph by Albert Fenn, 1941 portraits, unusual for Yup’ik masks. Seen together with Matisse’s drawings, they demonstrate the impact upon Matisse of seeing them, and their compatibility with his approach to his portraits of Arctic people. ey are among the collection of masks shown to Matisse, and this is the ‰rst occasion these masks have returned to the United States since 1945.

One of them can be seen in the 1941 installation photograph above, from the exhibition Indian Art of the United States, at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. is important exhibition was attended by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who penned the Foreword to the exhibition catalogue. SOURCE MATERIALS

When Georges Duthuit and Marguerite Matisse invited the artist to develop illustrations for Une fête en Cimmérie, they provided him with several books on Arctic exploration. e chief two among them, which would provide the majority of Matisse’s sources of imagery, were Knud Rasmussen’s Across Arctic America: Narrative of the Fifth ule Expedition (1927), and Kabloona, by Gontrans de Poncins (1941). First edition copies of these two volumes are exhibited in this gallery.

Another important source for Matisse was lm. Like almost everyone in France at the time, Matisse certainly viewed Robert Flaherty’s lm Nanook of the North when it was rst screened in 1922. In Paris, the lm was so popular it was shown in theaters for six months continuously. In 1930, during his famous voyage to Tahiti, Matisse happened to meet Flaherty, who was there with lmmaker F. W. Murnau, shooting the lm Tabu.

Matisse also met the Arctic explorer Paul-Émile Victor,

Our host, Qanigaq... Photograph by Leo Hansen published in Knud who gave him a private screening of raw lm footage shot Rasmussen’s Across Arctic America: Narrative of the Fifth ule Expedition, New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1927, page 219 in East Greenland during a French expedition in 1935-35. is was later released as Les quatre du Groenland (Fred Matter, 1938). In this lm, Matisse noticed a very brief shot showing a Kalaalliit (indigenous Greenlander) woman with her hair tied in a top-knot. A number of Matisse’s drawings for Une fête en Cimmérie show this particular detail repeatedly. “MASK” PORTRAITS

In the late period of his work, after 1945, Matisse stated that he no longer made portraits, but rather that he made “masks.” Matisse’s intense work on Arctic portraits for Une fête en Cimmérie would result in subsequent drawings of human subjects undergoing this nal evolution from face to mask.

roughout his career, we see the process unfold. He begins with a traditionally realistic representation of what he sees. He then draws again and again, each time distilling information into ever-simpler lines, shapes, and gestures. He gradually removes all extraneous details, except for the linear traces of the subject’s face. Finally, what appears is no longer a naturalistic reection of the visible, but the bare minimum requirements for a recognizable portrait, and sometimes even less. Matisse titled these nal stages of serial drawings “masks.”

It is not abstraction, per se, for Matisse retains the human subject: what the artist pursues is the spiritual and visual evidence of the person’s essence, a symbolic representation Henri Matisse at work on an ink drawing, Villa le Rêve, Vence, 1947 of its “sign”. ese images represent the transformed person, who has advanced from the terrestrial (visible here before him) to the ethereal (reborn by his drawing). e mask drawing is a metamorphosis, albeit one of material rather than mystical form. For Matisse, the spiritual journey is the drawing process itself.

As he put it: “To evoke a face, all that is needed is a sign. ere is no need to impose eyes, a mouth. . . . It is important to leave the eld open to the spectator’s reverie.” UNE FÊTE EN CIMMÉRIE

Just before war broke out in Europe in 1939, Georges Duthuit came to New York on a lecture tour, and became stranded. In New York, working as a war correspondent and inspired by loneliness, he began writing a surrealistic prose poem, titled Une fête en Cimmérie (A Celebration in Cimmeria), a fantasy in which the Arctic environment and a desolate urban landscape are merged, with Inuit people and spirit masks as main characters. In 1947 he and his wife Marguerite planned to produce a series of illustrated books, each dedicated to modes of celebration and art in indigenous cultures. Marguerite felt that her father Henri Matisse would be sympathetic to the subject of Arctic people, and she invited him to see the masks that Georges Duthuit had returned to Paris with. As a result of the profound e ect of this encounter, he agreed to produce three illustrations for the book Une fête en Cimmérie.

Matisse was very interested in the project, as it combined several of his passions. He enjoyed making book illustrations, having completed four books in 1946, and that same year, 1947, he produced , a revolutionary book composed of paper cut-outs, the rst of a new technique and body of work which would dene the balance of his career.

In addition, Matisse had always expressed an interest in ancient civilizations, foreign peoples, and masks. He considered travel to be an essential element of an artist’s education. e opportunity to learn about a people that he knew nothing about, who lived in a close relationship with nature, and who created masks, was extremely appealing to him. Marguerite and Georges Duthuit presented him with two books by famous Arctic explorers to study for inspiration, those of Knud Rasmussen and Gontran de Poncins. e portraits Matisse made were based on photographs of Arctic people from these books. Following the artist’s usual process of making numerous studies, and reworking them many times, Matisse eventually created forty-three images for the book, instead of the requested three, completing the series in 1949.

Une Fête en Cimmérie was only published nearly a decade after the artist had died. It was not until 1963 that a rst edition of 130 copies, containing Matisse’s thirty-one lithographs, was published by Tériade. e following year, Mourlot would publish fty copies, supplemented by a reproduction of a 1947 aquatint on the cover, and twelve additional drawings. VENCE CHAPEL OF THE ROSARY

Soon after the outbreak of the war, Matisse had been granted a visa to Brazil, but decided to remain in Villa le Rêve is situated very near the convent of the Dominican Sisters, Foyer Lacordaire, where the nuns is was the starting point for what would become Matisse’s most ambitious project, the France. He departed Paris in May 1940, just before the advancing German armies invaded the city, and operated a convalescent hospital. Having returned to her nursing studies while working part time for Chapel of the Rosary. Sister Jacques-Marie built the architectural models for Matisse, settled in , in the south of France. By the end of the year, he experienced worsening gastrointestinal Matisse, in December 1943 Monique decided she would become a nun. e news came as a shock to and worked with him as the chief liaison between the studio and the convent. disorders and was diagnosed with a tumor, and in January 1941, he underwent surgery in Lyon. He nearly Matisse, who tried to dissuade her, but she was assured in her calling. She departed Vence and became a Ultimately, Matisse designed every detail: the architecture, all the materials and surfaces, died from complications and was conned to bed for months, unable to work. With assistance he managed novice at a convent in Monteils, Aveyron, and in September 1944 she took the veil and the name Sister the altar, the confessional, a sculptural cross, blue roof tiles, and designs for the priest’s to begin working again from the connes of his bed, and adapted new techniques for drawing and painting, Jacques-Marie. After completing her training and taking full vows in 1946, she returned to Vence to live at vestments and altar cloths. Most importantly, Matisse planned ceramic murals for the with charcoals attached to long sticks to reach the high walls of his Foyer Lacordaire. She and Matisse had an emotional walls and carefully chose the colors of the window glass.

Sister Jacques-Marie and Bishop with maquette for bedroom studio. In these dicult years, Matisse would generate an reunion and resumed their deep friendship. Chapel of the Rosary, Vence, ca. 1950. By the time they nished, Matisse had created a total Henri Matisse Archives, France entirely new creative direction and energy. work of art, a three-dimensional painting in colored light. Next door to the convent lay the remains of the A convalescent semi-invalid, living in the Hotel Regina in Nice, the foundations for a chapel, a project begun sometime in While the Chapel of the Rosary is a profoundly spiritual space, Matisse artist met twenty-one-year-old nursing student Monique Bourgeois in the past but long abandoned. Without a proper chapel, pursued its realization primarily as a work of art, working on every detail in

Henri Matisse with sketches, maquettes, and materials for Chapel of the Rosary, September, 1942. Henri Matisse sketching for Chapel of the Rosary, Vence, with paper the sisters used an old garage on the property, a Interior view of Henri Matisse studio, Nice, France, with paper mockup the same manner he did with his paintings and Maquette for Chapel of the Rosary, ca. 1950. Photo by Marc Vaux Nice, France, ca. 1950. Photograph by Felix Man collages in Nice, France, ca. 1950. Photograph by Walter Carone of chausable for Chapel of the Rosary, ca. 1950 Henri Matisse Archives, France Henri Matisse Archives, France Henri Matisse Archives, France Photograph by Hélène Adant structure in terrible disrepair, with a roof that leaked Henri Matisse Archives, France sculpture. He went through hundreds of With her family impoverished and her father recently deceased, Monique was right next to the altar. One of the nuns, Sister Jeanne, acted as sacristan and spoke variations, especially the drawings of Saint Dominic, the Virgin and Child, and forced to leave her nursing studies incomplete. Seeking work to help support the frequently about the need to build a new chapel. One night, as Sister Jeanne lay on her deathbed, Sister the Stations of the Cross, executed as ceramic-tile murals on three walls. He family, Monique visited the placement oce of her nursing school, and was Jacques-Marie watched over her, and made a drawing for a stained glass window, with the idea to dedicate composed the space with stained glass windows opposite to the ceramic murals,

Interior view of Chapel of the Rosary, Vence, France, 1952. informed that the artist Henri Matisse was looking for a night nurse. She had it to Jeanne. Sister Jacques-Marie brought the drawing to Matisse. Much to her surprise, he loved the Photograph by Hélène Adant so that the colored light plays across the glazing, as it does on the light-colored Henri Matisse Archives, France never heard of him, but accepted the job. It would be the beginning of a dear sketch, and said he would help her to get it made. Suddenly Matisse seemed to have everything sorted out, stone oor. He chose a rough brown stone for the altar, which has a quality friendship that would lead to what Matisse would call “the pinnacle of my whole but Sister Jacques-Marie was nervous. She couldn’t go back to the Mother Superior and announce that reminiscent of bread, an important symbol in the sacraments of the mass. Matisse even thought that the working life. . . . my masterpiece,” the Chapel of the Rosary in Vence. Matisse wanted them to have a chapel, but she also knew that once Matisse set his mind to something, he space should not have an organ, stating that the nuns’ singing voices should be the only , to enhance would not let it go. Sister Jacques-Marie heard a stern refusal from the Mother Superior, as she expected. the eect of serenity in the space. He purposefully considered each detail artistically, thinking about the Henri Matisse making sketches of the Stations of the Cross, for Chapel of the Rosary, Nice, France, ca. 1950. Monique was completely unaccustomed to the worldliness of her employer, had Photograph by Felix Man aesthetic impact of color, light, and sound and the emotional eects each would have. Henri Matisse Archives, France never been exposed to modern art, although she loved to draw. ey talked on A few months later, a young Dominican monk from Paris was staying in nearby Saint- Paul-de-Vence, and countless subjects, and Matisse became enamored of her candid honesty and easy charm. He asked to see stopped by the Foyer Lacordaire to pay his respects to the Mother Superior. He asked her if anyone notable e Chapel of the Rosary was consecrated on June 25, 1951. Matisse died on November 3, 1954. He stated her drawings and showed her his paintings. Matisse soon requested that Monique pose for him, and she sat lived nearby, and was told about Matisse. e Mother Superior told him he couldn’t barge in on Matisse on numerous occasions that the years he lived after his surgery were a gift to him, and that these years for dozens of drawings and four paintings: Monique in the Gray Robe, e Green Dress and Oranges, e Idol, without a good reason, so she called for Sister Jacques-Marie and hatched a plan: she was to introduce allowed him to be fully liberated, free to do anything he wanted. e Chapel of the Rosary stands among and Tabac Royal. en, in June 1943, after the threat of possible bombardments in Nice, Matisse rented the Brother Rayssiguier to Matisse as the architect for the new chapel, and he was to consult Matisse about the those accomplishments, as a gift, from one artist to another, between two spiritual emissaries who were also Villa le Rêve (Dream House) in Vence, situated uphill from the coast. Here, Monique assisted Matisse in plans for the stained glass window Sister Jacques had sketched. In fact, this was merely a pretext to get the close friends. the studio. Together they worked on a new commission, the book Jazz, for which Matisse invented a new monk in to meet the artist, not a serious proposal for a new chapel, but Brother Rayssiguier could not means of working, making collages of gouache-colored cut paper. Monique and Lydia Delectorskaya, the contain his joy at the idea. He surveyed the old foundations, made notes and measurements, and with this I want the chapel visitors to experience a lightening of the spirit. So that, even without being believers, they sense a artist’s longtime personal assistant, painted the paper that Matisse cut freehand, without drawing, into information arranged to see Matisse. e painter greeted him warmly and the two elaborated the idea in a milieu of spiritual elevation, where thought is clari ed, where feeling itself is lightened. shapes, and together they assembled the compositions for the book. long meeting. By the time they were nished, plans for a new chapel were fully formed, with the stained glass windows to be designed by Matisse himself. Henri Matisse, 1952 MATISSE NEW DIRECTIONS

e portrait drawings by Henri Matisse of Inuit people, at Marguerite Duthuit’s request, were begun soon after the war, in 1947, contemporaneous with his designs for the Chapel of the Rosary in Vence. Spiritual matters would have been of great concern to the French master, whose legacy in art history was already solidly assured but who nonetheless faced mortality like everyone else. It is no surprise that Matisse would nd himself designing a sacred space, at the same time as exploring the struggles of life among Arctic peoples. Following the turbulent war years, it was also a period of contemplation for the entire world.

Even though he was not religious, Matisse created the Chapel of the Rosary in dedication to his friend, Sister Jacques-Marie, who had been one of his nurses after his slow recovery from surgery in 1941. He turned to making drawings of Inuit at the same moment, thanks to his daughter Marguerite's request, and perhaps in gratitude Exterior views of Chapelle du Rosaire (Chapel of the Rosary), Vence for her return from the war. It may be coincidence that these two projects happened simultaneously, but it is logical that his own creative investigations of grace would extend to another group of people, whom he saw as intimately connected to their environment and communal existence.

e connection between the Vence chapel and Matisses’s Arctic portraits is also made clear in this anecdote dated April 4, 1950, as recounted by Brother Rayssiguier, who worked closely with Matisse on the chapel’s construction:

When we were working on the 1:20 scale model, Matisse looked up at a project on the wall; he modi ed an abstract pattern and said, showing me a charcoal drawing of an Eskimo head that had been sitting on the mantel for a few days: “at is the smile of an Eskimo woman.” “Did you create it from a live model?” “No, from a photo. You see that smile? It looks like a sh. But I didn’t mean to make a smile that looks like a sh, that would be surrealism. I made a smile, and it just happens to look like a sh.” en, referring to the chapel’s main entrance, Matisse asked Father Couturier whether he might “represent Christ as a sh in front of a net.” He pulled out the 1949 drawing of an “Eskimo Woman,” to make it clear that this sh would also make reference to the smile of the believers. ALASKA

Yup’ik people establish village communities — ca. 1000 BCE throughout south-west Alaska PLACES EVENTS

British seacaptain James Cook traverses the — 1778 Pacic, collects material culture and charts coastline in Alaska FRANCE Russian-American company establishes — 1818 trading post in Nushagak, Bristol Bay 1869 — Henri Matisse born December 31, Russian-American company establishes trading — 1840 Cateau-Cambrésis, France post at Mumtrellega, Kuskokwim River Yup’ik angalkuq (shaman) and artist — 1863 1887 — Matisse goes to Paris to study law Agyatciaq born, Nelson Island 1889 — Matisse begins painting, after his Alaska Territory is sold by Russia — 1867 mother gives him a box of paints to the United States after an attack of appendicitis 1891 — Matisse returns to Paris to study art at the Académie Julian and becomes Moravian missionaries establish Bethel — 1884 a student of William-Adolphe Bouguereau Mission at the site of Yup’ik village of and Mumtrellega, near trading post 1894 — Daughter, Marguerite, born Gold is discovered near Nome, beginning — 1900 of the “Gold Rush,” population increases 1898-1904 — Matisse paints in a Neo-Impressionist by many thousands of miners, traders, manner, with contemporaries Pissarro, shermen and missionaries Derain, Marquet A.H. Twitchell moves to Bethel, — 1902 1905 — Matisse and a group of artists now known as establishes trading post and collects “Fauves” (wild beasts) exhibit together in a dozens of Yup’ik masks for museums room at the Salon d’Automne. Gertrude Stein buys his work, introduces him to Picasso John E. waites documents Agyatciaq in — 1906 a series of photographs in Nushagak NEW YORK 1906 — Matisse paints Blue Nude, a controversial work that becomes one of the icons of Modernism Twitchell collects over 26 pairs of masks — 1908 from artist Ikamrailnguq in Napaskiak 1914-1918 — World War I ravages Europe 1916 — George Heye opens the Museum of the 1917 — Matisse moves to Nice, in the south of France American Indian

1930 — Matisse travels to Tahiti, via New York, 1930 — Matisse commissioned by Alfred Barnes to paint Knud Rasmussen ends his Fifth ule — 1924 then across America by train. He takes murals for his collection, Philadelphia Expedition in Nome, interviews 10 artists the Santa Fe rail through the Southwest. from Nunivak, commissions them to make drawings and masks 1939 — Georges Duthuit in America for lectures; 1939 — Outbreak of World War II, Matisse departs Paris gets stranded by the war in May, 1940, settles in Nice Publication of Across Arctic America: — 1927 Narrative of the Fifth ule Report. is 1941 — Numerous artists & intellectuals from 1941 — Matisse undergoes cancer surgery, has di cult book will provide the primary resource of France arrive in New York as refugees, recovery, continues working from bed continue their collecting and exhibition images for Matisse’s Arctic portraits 1942 — Matisse hires nursing student Monique Bourgeois, activites; Max Ernst meets art dealer who later becomes a nun, Sister Jacques-Marie Julius Carlebach 1945 — War ends, Matisse is reunited with daughter Marguerite; Georges Duthuit returns to Paris

1947 — Matisse begins work on Arctic portraits for Une fête en Cimmérie; creates the book Jazz, composed from paper cut-outs

1948-1951 — Matisse works on the Chapel of the Rosary, Vence Agyatciaq dies, Anchorage — 1954 1954 — Matisse dies, November 3; is buried in Nice

1963 — Une fête en Cimmérie is published

Yua: Henri Matisse and the Inner Arctic — 2018-2019 Spirit exhibition, Heard Museum PHOENIX KEGGINAQUT YUP’IK MASKS

e Central Yup’ik people have inhabited sub-Arctic Alaska for at least three thousand years. To this day, most Yupiit (plural) maintain a subsistence economy, living in small village communities from the natural resources of the land, sea and sky. To maintain balance and harmony between their people and environment, Yup’ik culture developed a rich tradition of dancing and story-singing. Some of the annual communal dances, held in the qasgi (ceremonial house), included the wearing of elaborate masks.

By tradition, Yup’ik masks were the creations of the village angalkuq (shaman). In most cases, the angalkuq was also a skilled artist, who would create masks in accordance with their dreams or visions. In this exhibition, we have identied two of these angalkut, whose names were Ikamrailnguq and Agyatciaq. ey are the creators of some of the best-known Yup’ik masks in existence, and their lifespans made them exact contemporaries of Henri Matisse.

In Yup’ik language, the word yua describes the individual spirit entity that gives life. e main purpose of masked dancing is to implore the yua (spirit) of the animals to return to the village each spring, as required for survival. Yup’ik masks generally represent the yua of each animal being appealed to in the dance. And since Yup’ik dancing involves several verses, masks were often created in related groups (ilakellriit).

Masks were often destroyed after their rst performance, but once Yup’ik people were contacted by traders and missionaries in the late 19th century, they began exchanging their masks for trade goods, and these masks entered museum collections. Since early collectors often were unaware of the inter-related nature of grouped masks, most masks became separated from each other over time. Here, we have reunited many of these related pairs and groups, some for the rst time in over one hundred years. NAPASKIAQ IKAMRAILNGUQ

Napaskiaq is an ancient and culturally important Yup’ik village on the Kuskokwim River. Its name in Yup’ik translates to the “place with many pennants.” Napaskiaq, being locally designated as a sacred landmark, was so elevated in stature it was demarcated with at least ten agpoles. In keeping with Napaskiaq’s status, the village angalkuq (shaman) also had very high standing in the Yup’ik hierarchy of cultural importance.

One such shaman in the village of Napaskiaq, living there at roughly the same time that the trader Adams H. Twitchell was living in nearby Bethel and eld-collecting locally, was named Ikamrailnguq (One Without a Sled). He was known as a skilled carver, as were his father and grandfather. Ikamrailnguq Portrait of Ikamrailnguq, Napaskiaq, Alaska, ca. 1910. is photograph of the angarvak and master carver Ikamrailnguq was shared by his great-grandson, who also practices and teaches was also known by the Russo-American name Wassily, and his wood carving today. Ikamrailnguq was also known as Qaiyista (“Kayak Maker”), as well as by the name Wassily. family carries this name today. Most importantly, he was considered an angarvak: a powerful shaman, elevated in distinction above the usual name angalkuq.

It is tting that, in an ancient Yup’ik village of very high

esteem, where there lived an angarvak who was himself an Mamtrechlachamute, Kuskokwim trading post, 1884. Photograph by William H. Weinland; e Huntington Library, San Marino, CA. Photograph Archives, photCL 39 (038a) accomplished carver in a lineage of family craftsmen, View of the Yup’ik village of Mamterilleq, at the site where the Moravian missionaries would found the Bethel mission. there would be so many masterpieces of Kuskokwim art. We suspect that a majority of the highly complex masks collected there by Twitchell in Napaskiaq between 1902 and 1912 are likely the work of Ikamrailnguq, or at least were made under his direction. ey exceed many other examples in their originality, technical accomplishment, and visionary uniqueness. ey are some of the most visually striking accomplishments of all Yup’ik art. All of the masks in the cases to the right are attributed to Ikamrailnguq. PAITAQ

e visual vocabulary of masks is very much like spoken language, as it is a way of communicating to successive members of a family their common history and inheritance. e Yup’ik term for this is paitaq, an ancient word that suggests cultural heritage but is more nuanced in meaning. Paitaq is a gift, but one given to the next generation selectively. Paitaq is not simply passed down; it is granted, invisible until prepared and conveyed when its receiver is ready. In the masks from Napaskiaq made by Ikamrailnguq, we see the symbols of a deeply traditional expression of village paitaq, the manifestation of centuries of renement and artistry.

e particular series of masks in the cases at left follow this symbolic system, and have been commonly referred to as the “weather masks.” is group of related masks (called ilakellriit in Yup’ik), tell a specic dance narrative: they were made for one particular dance and performed together. Most of them describe the winds, as evidenced by their recorded names (Tumanret - the four paths; Negeqvaq - the north wind). e inclusion of cupluq, tubes attached to the chin and forehead of some of these masks, suggest that the winds emanate from these tubes. e importance of the representation of the winds, aside from their practical conveyance of warmth, which heralds the arrival of animals in spring, is that the weather is a manifestation of Ella, the most supreme spiritual entity. Ella means the weather, but also the universe, the outer reaches of consciousness; of all that is known and unknown.

e use of colors in these masks is also symbolic, such as white and black, referring to erneq, day (light, awareness) and unuk, night (darkness, the unknown), as well as to summer (warmth, life) and winter (cold, mortality). is arrangement of colors indicates that the masks reects both winter and summer in one entity, and express not only the weather but also all life upon the river.

Compositional elements play important roles in expressing symbolic meaning, and often these refer to several things at once. For example, the long n-like shapes protruding from the lower sections on the weather masks are called pamyuq (whale ukes), as they resemble the whale’s tail. e long rods hanging from them are called kucirluni (dripping water), visually suggestive of water owing o the tail as the whale breaches. But they are also described as tuutaq (labrets) and uguarluni (dripping oil). Tuutaq are special labrets worn by elders of special status and wisdom, and uguarluni suggest the rendering of whale or seal blubber into the precious oil required for cooking and illumination. A.H. TWITCHELL

Many of the masks collected in Napaskiaq are examples of special Yup’ik typologies, mumignera and ilakellriit (matched and related pairs or groups). An important goal of this exhibition has been to reunite as many of these groups as possible. Having witnessed performances with many of these masks, eld collector A. H. Twitchell was among the last Euro-Americans to experience them in their original dance context. Seeing them restored side by side for the rst time since they were collected more than a century ago is extremely powerful and satisfying.

Adams Hollis Twitchell (1872–1949) was born near Jamaica, Vermont, on April 22, 1872. He left home to seek his fortune during the Alaskan gold rushes of the 1890s and found himself in Nome by 1902. Soon after, Twitchell moved up the Kuskokwim River to a small Yup’ik village (probably Kasigluk) to trade furs. ere he met and married

Qeciq, a Yup’ik woman from Nelson Island. Adams H. Twitchell with masks, Bethel, AK, ca. 1906. Photographer unknown, courtesy of Twitchell family descendants.

Twitchell and an unidenti ed Yup’ik man, posed on the porch of his Bethel trading post with at least six dance masks and objects. In his left hand, Twitchell holds one of the pair of Crane masks; in his right hand he holds one of the large Tumaneq masks. ese and the others shown here went to Twitchell moved to Bethel and partnered with two other the collection of George Heye, including the extraordinary King Salmon headress (Yuracuun Nacaq, NMAI 9/3574) worn by the Yup’ik man. men to establish the trading post of Joaquin, Twitchell & Fowler, bringing the rst paddle-wheel steamship to the region to transport supplies upriver from the coast. Twitchell was curious and inclined to study his natural surroundings, and his marriage to Qeciq lent him insight and sensitivity to local customs and beliefs. Over the objections of the Moravian ministers in Bethel, Twitchell allowed dances to be held in his warehouse on occasion.

Twitchell provided one of the key connections between the academic world and the Kuskokwim, maintaining correspondence with early anthropologists such as Edward W. Nelson (1855–1934), and also collecting biological eld specimens of local ora and fauna for the Smithsonian and other institutions as far away as Europe. George Byron Gordon (1870–1927), the rst director of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Anthropology, traveled to Alaska on collecting expeditions in 1905 and 1907, and met Twitchell on his second trip. e recently founded Penn Museum was busy collecting artifacts from cultures all across the United States, as were others, such as the American Museum of Natural History in New York. With this in mind, Twitchell noticed that Yup’ik dances involving masks were sometimes followed by the destruction of those masks. ey might be burnt or left out on the tundra to be reclaimed by the elements. Because of the interest of museums and his close ties with Yup’ik villagers, Twitchell began collecting masks and other regalia used in dancing, as well as practical items like sleds, mukluks, and parkas.

Because of his Yup’ik family, Twitchell not only had access to witness these dances, but also the opportunity to understand their meaning and stories. He kept notes on the more than fty masks he collected, often including their Yup’ik names, and transferred this information to

Curios of a trader, Bethel, 1901. Gordon when he sold masks to the outside Photograph by Joseph Herman Romig Moravian Archives, Bethlehem, PA

Joseph H. Romig was the rst Moravian medical doctor in residence at the world. As a result, what is now known as the Bethel mission. is interior is likely the trading shop of Twitchell’s partners, just prior to his arrival. Twitchell Collection in the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, contains some of the best-documented traditional Yup’ik dance masks in existence.

In a letter to George Gordon in 1908, Twitchell mentions attending ceremonial dances to collect masks at more than one location, and attending one festival “and staying a week until it nished.” It may be Napaskiaq that he refers to when he mentions this; among the masks he sent to Gordon in 1908, a large group from Napaskiaq, many made by Ikamrailnguq, were among them. NUSHAGAK

e village of Nushagak in Bristol Bay was the site of the one of the rst trading posts in Alaska when it was Russian territory, established as Alexandrovsky Redoubt in 1819. In 1867, Alaska was sold to the United States, and Russian commercial interests were transferred to the Alaska Commercial Company (ACC), which had its headquarters in San Francisco. While it had originally been a small trading post centered on the fur trade, by the late 19th Century Nushagak was a busy seaport with a thriving industry of commercial salmon shing. Even today, Bristol Bay is one of the most abundant ecosystems for salmon in the world. And because of the salmon canneries that were established in and near Nushagak, people came from across the world to work there.

Nushagak was not a native Yup’ik village, but was in close proximity to many others, and local populations would often come to the ACC post to trade, or to work in the canneries during the shing season. One such Yup’ik person, a shaman named Agyatciaq (1863–1954), visited the ACC trading post in 1906, and became immortalized in a series of photographs in which he is seen wearing extraordinary masks and a unique pair of gigantic wooden hands. ese photographs became famous not only for their rare recording of a Yup’ik shaman wearing dance masks, at a time contemporary with their creation, but because the masks he is wearing are well-recognized as masterful examples of Yup’ik art.

e photographs were taken by John L. waites (1863–1940), an amateur photographer who worked as postal inspector on the SS Dora, a ship carrying the mail and supplies along the Alaska coastline. waites took thousands of photos with the intent to supply a burgeoning market in postcard images and in the process he documented scenes of daily life in numerous towns, including Nushagak.

Agyatciaq appears with his son, Robert, in the most famous of all of waites’ photographs. waites indicates that the subjects of the photo are a “medicine man” and a “sick boy.” In researching their identities, we realized that nding this shaman would mean identifying the creator of the extraordinary masks he is seen wearing. Until now, these masks have been identied only as originating in Nushagak. We are very pleased, with the help of his descendants, to recognize Agyatciaq, who lived in nearby Togiak, as the maker of these powerful, historic masks. AGYATCIAQ (ANDREW)

(both above) Robert Lebel Drawings from Notebook of annotated drawings of Eskimo masks from the Heye collection deposited with Julius Carlebach, Pages 2 and 56, ca. 1944 Musée du quai Branly, Paris, DA000813/62140

e angalkuq had a number of Yup’ik names. Mainly, he was Agyatciaq, a name suggesting Nushagak, Alaska, 1906. Bering Sea Eskimo (above): Nushagak Bay District, Bering Sea, 1910 Nushagak or Fort Alexander, 1884 Attributed to Agyatciaq a relationship with stars (from agya-, star; Agyarpak, Venus, the Morning Star; and Photograph by John E. waites, waites cat. 531 Nushagak, Alaska, 1906 Alaska State Library, Historical Collections Photograph by William H. Weinland Central Yup’ik, Nushagak Village, Bristol Bay, Alaska agyaruaq, starsh). Robert’s name is a variant spelling of this name. Agyatciaq Alaska State Library, Historical Collections, John E. waites Collection P18/122 Photograph by John E. waites Map of the Bristol Bay area, indicating villages and salmon cannery sites e Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, Shaman’s dance mask (Nepcetaq) ca. 1890 also had the name Yurucista, or Song-maker, a logical name to have for an angalkuq. He (From left to right) Pavila Byayuk, Willie Byayuk, Robert Ayojiak, Agyatciaq (Andrew). Private collection between Nushagak and Togiak. Photograph Archives, photCL 39 (030a) Wood, pigment, vegetal bers, feathers was also known as Kalngacilluk, which means “back-pack.” He probably had this nickname Portrait of Agyatciaq 34 5⁄8 x 33 3⁄4 x 20 1⁄2 in. (86 x 88 x 52 cm) because he had the reputation of being strong, both in spirit and character but also All pictured in this photograph are family members. e Nushagak trading post as it appeared twenty years earlier. e Musée du quai Branly, Paris, 70.2006.27.1 physically. Literally speaking, he carried a large back-pack as he was employed to carry the warehouse is the main building on the left, and the post manager’s house is (below): Nushagak Trading Post, ca. 1910. mail from Nushagak to the surrounding villages. is was the reason he and waites knew directly to the right. John W. Clark, the post manager at the time, can be is dance mask, documented being worn by Agyatciaq in one of waites’ Photograph by Charles Wray each other. waites, as the postal inspector aboard the SS Dora, oversaw the transfer of seen on the left among the group of people standing on the beach. photographs in 1906, was once owned by Surrealist artist Roberto Matta, who sold it Anchorage Museum Archives, Alaska the mail at Nushagak, where it would have been met by Agyatciaq and perhaps other local to art historian Robert Lebel in the 1940s. Lebel was Marcel Duchamp’s biographer, is photograph shows the trading post as it appeared when Agyatciaq was messengers. It is likely that the two men met many times during the period waites and also made the two drawings seen above, in a notebook he kept documenting recorded standing on the porch. e sign over the doorway reads: General visited Nushagak between 1906 and 1912. Yup’ik masks in Surrealist collections. Merchandise, Furs; A. H. Mittendor. Mittendor was the trading post owner at the time, taking over after the death of John W. Clark in 1896. TUUNRAT MASKS

Some of the masks seen in this group represent the spirit entity Tuunraq. e Tuunrat (plural) have been described as “tricksters” in modern times, and Edward Nelson, who acquired the mask seen here directly from an angalkuq (shaman) in Pastolik, recorded them as “some very bad people who are seen by [the shaman] only.” However, tuunrat were traditionally considered guides to direct the angalkuq to the proper location on his travels. us, they are best described as “spirit helpers” of the angalkuq. Just as death is a part of life, so the tuunrat are necessary elements in the universe.

ese very special masks show some of the usual compositional devices of a tuunraq mask: the qimumalutek (curving mouth), splattered with blood from those creatures he has devoured; the twisting and asymmetrical eyes, appearing as additional mouths. In this case, the tuunrat both seem to be like the Iralum Yua (Moon-Woman spirit) or its counterpart: rotating upon an axis and reecting lunar radiance. Indeed, the appendages of whale ukes with their dangling kucirluni (dripping water) and the human legs running in the same direction suggest that these tuunrat are orbiting a polar axis. Central Yup’ik, Pastolik village, Pastolik River, Alaska Dance mask representing Tuunraq (Shaman’s helping spirit) ca. 1870s Wood, feathers, pigment, vegetal bers National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, E33105-0 Collected in 1878 by Edward W. Nelson near Pastolik e lm in this gallery shows several of the masks presented here, as they appeared in 1964. Anthropologist Edmund Carpenter and cinematographer Robert Cannon collaborated on this lm, showing masks in motion. eir lm project was abondoned when Cannon died suddenly the following year, and this rare footage has never been seen publicly before now. SURREALISTS

e artistic movement known as Surrealism was established in Paris in 1924, as an outcropping of the Dada movement from Switzerland. Its chief protagonist and philosopher was the poet André Breton (1896-1966). Seeking alternative models of society following the horrible realities of World War I, the artists and writers of the Surrealist group felt that new means of expression and thought were urgently needed. ey explored the new eld of psychoanalysis, with its emphasis on dreams and the subconscious mind, and looked to tribal cultures and folk traditions for inspiration. Just as African sculpture had been inuential to the Cubists before them, the Surrealists were particularly attracted to the arts of the Americas and the Pacic Islands, onto which they projected fantasies of magic, shamanism, and dreams. eir studies of Native American and Polynesian art led some of the Surrealists to collect examples of material culture objects from those societies, which they wrote about and exhibited. Breton organized a “Surrealist Exposition” in Paris in 1936, that featured Alaskan masks and objects from Polynesia.

André Breton in his studio at 42 rue Fontaine in Paris, ca. 1955, with masks and other artworks. Photograph by Sabine Weiss. With the outbreak of World War II, artists and intellectuals from Europe, many of them associated with the Surrealist group, began arriving in New York as refugees, and located each other to keep their feelings of loneliness and isolation at bay. Gradually, an expatriate group of like-minded Europeans gathered, and they visited with fascination the vast Native American collections of the American Museum of Natural History and the Museum of the American Indian, founded by George Heye (1874-1957). Following their passions for this art, they used their resources to acquire impressive examples as they became available. André Breton, Georges Duthuit, and another art historian, Robert Lebel, were particularly eager to acquire Yup’ik masks, and returned to France with their collections at the end of the war.

e Surrealists retained an idealistic belief that the shaman-artist in Yup’ik societies felt no separation between art and life. Much of this thinking was creative supposition, and Breton ultimately bemoaned the limits of anthropology and other disciplines to fully convey the true nature of human experience. Yet, it is compelling that these artists attempted to connect the great divisions of time, distance, and thought that separated Alaskan societies from their own in their eorts to reimagine a new society and its art. KNUD RASMUSSEN NUNIVAK

One of the key source materials for Henri Matisse’s drawings and lithographs of Arctic peoples was the 1927 volume by Knud Rasmussen (1879–1933), Across Arctic America: Narrative of the Fifth ule Expedition. Rasmussen was born in Greenland of mixed Danish and Kalaalliit heritage, and learned to speak Greenlandic Inuktitut (Kalaallisut) as a young boy. He became famous for being among the rst professional anthropologists to thoroughly pursue the study of Arctic peoples. In search of the source of Attributed to Pugtuaq Attributed to Pugtuaq Attributed to Naryartuq Cup’ik, Nunivak Island, Alaska Cup’ik, Nunivak Island, Alaska Cup’ik, Nunivak Island, Alaska Drawing of irci mask representing Neqaram Yua (Cua) Avneq Drawing for irci mask representing Kangilngam Yua (Cua) Avneq Drawing for irci mask representing several animal and human spirit-helpers their ancestral heritage, he spent years traveling with and living among Inuit. As a northern European (but (Salmon spirit-helper) (Fox spirit-helper) 1924, pencil on paper, approx. 5 x 8 in. (12.7 x 20 cm) 1924, pencil on paper, approx. 5 x 8 in. (12.7 x 20 cm) 1924, pencil on paper, approx. 5 x 8 in. (12.7 x 20 cm) National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen, P34.21/ES 105958 National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen, P34.8/ES 105938 National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen, P34.11/ES 105941 with a mother whose Kalaalliit family gave him cultural sensitivity, legitimacy, and is drawing shows a mask for an irci, a hybrid animal/human spirit. Here, the spirit-helper (avneq) procures salmon through the hole in his hand, from which the salmon’s cua (spirit, yua in Yup’ik) emerges. linguistic access to record oral traditions among them), Rasmussen was taken seriously as a bridge between Inuit cultures and a European audience, for whom While in Nome, Rasmussen spent much of the summer visiting with the men from Nunivak, Attributed to Pugtuaq Cup’ik, Nunivak Island, Alaska Dance mask representing a Kangilngam irci (Human-fox irci spirit) the Inuit remained a fascinating mystery. ere had been many Arctic expeditions where local islanders are Cup’ik, a subgroup of Yup’ik. Finding that his uency in Kalaallisut 1925, wood, pigment, fur, feathers; approx. 91⁄4 x 53⁄8 in. (23.4 x 13.6 cm) National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen; P.33: 110 is mask depicts a typical irci representation, with the human elements painted red and the animal- by Europeans before Rasmussen, but there had not been one guided with such failed him in fully understanding their language, Rasmussen engaged Paul Ivano, a local spirit elements painted blue, consistent with the symbolism of Yup’ik colors. It contains one human ear and one fox ear, a human arm and leg, with corresponding animal legs. e ellanguaq (hoop) supports sixteen lamp representations, symbolizing a mask of great illumination. clearly authoritative capabilities. Russian/Iñupiat from the village of St. Michael, an Iñupiat-speaker who was familiar with the

Knud Rasmussen with Arnarulunnguaq and Qavigaarsuaq Miteq, dialect of Cup’ik spoken among the Nunivaarmiut. With Ivano ’s assistance, Rasmussen was Copenhagen, Denmark, November 3, 1924. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, 2016838790 Members of the Fifth ule Expedition are celebrated upon their In 1910, Rasmussen and his friend Peter able to interview the men regarding their practices and storytelling traditions. Recording each return to Copenhagen from the Arctic. Freuchen established the ule Trading Station of their names, Rasmussen asked six of the Nunivaarmiut to make drawings of the masks at Cape York, Greenland, now known as Uummannaq. ule became the used, and provide descriptions of the component parts and their signicance. Rasmussen base camp for what would become known as the ule Expeditions, additionally commissioned these artists to make new masks for him, to represent the concepts seven exploratory journeys undertaken between 1912 and 1933. e described in their drawings. e masks were produced in the following year, 1925, and sent to

most ambitious and remarkable of the ule Expeditions was the fth, Map of the Fifth ule Expedition as published in Across Arctic America: Narrative Rasmussen in Denmark. Along with the drawings and Rasmussen’s notes (he returned to of the Fifth ule Expedition, 1927. 1921–24. It made Rasmussen a legendary gure: the rst European to Copenhagen with thirty notebooks), they form a core collection at the National Museum of navigate the Northwest Passage by dogsled. He completed the nal Denmark in Copenhagen. Of the copious drawings (over 150) produced by the sixteen months of the expedition accompanied only by two Kalaalliit—a woman and a man, Greenlandic Nunivaarmiut, Rasmussen published six in his original 1926 publication, Fra Grönland til friends of Rasmussen named Arnarulunnguaq (Little Woman) and Qavigaarsuaq Miteq (Eider Stillehavet, a two-volume report on the Fifth ule Expedition written in Danish. His 1927 Duck)—traversing nearly 3,000 miles to end his journey in Nome, Alaska. e entire expedition covered book Across Arctic America is the English translation, in a single volume, which became more than 18,000 miles over the course of three years, stopping everywhere the team encountered Inuit to internationally popular, and is the edition of the book that Matisse read and based his

live with and interview. drawings upon. Both publications incorporate and distill Rasmussen’s extensive notes from his Attributed to Pugtuaq Cup’ik, Nunivak Island, Alaska Dance mask representing a female spirit 1925, wood, pigment, fur, feathers, baleen; approx. 10 x 7 in. (25 x 17.5 cm) National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen; P.33: 107 chief informant, the angalkuq (shaman) Nayagniq. e small hourglass-shaped carvings at the perimeter of the ellanguaq (hoop) are probably representations of seal-oil lamps, their tufts of fur representing smoke. Rasmussen would have continued into but his visa would not allow him entry into Russian territory, and he was turned back across the Bering Strait, and the expedition ocially ended in Nome. Remaining in Rasmussen named six artists among the collection of drawings: Naryartuq, Pugtauq, Nome allowed Rasmussen to encounter a group of men from Nunivak Island whose drawings and stories Atkuilquq, Iraluq, Nayiraq, and Cuqaq. e eldest among them was Pugtauq, noted as an excellent carver. It would later become references for Henri Matisse when he read about them in 1947. is most likely Pugtauq who made the twenty-eight masks and dance obects for Rasmussen.