Charles Greul
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RENDER | THE CARLETON GRADUATE JOURNAL OF ART AND CULTURE VOLUME TWO Charles Greul The Non-Aboriginal Forebearer to the Northwest Coast Printmaking Movement By: Amy Johnston, MA Art History to the fore. To them I add ‘appropriation.’ Charles Greul, a non-Aboriginal printmaker Together, these four terms will provide a basis working in the style of the Northwest Coast from which to discuss the ways Greul and his during the mid-twentieth century, is an enigma. prints inserted themselves into the changing The only known information is his birth date of discourse of Northwest Coast Aboriginal art 1923; his possible immigrant status; and a production, appreciation and dissemination. printmaking career in British Columbia This paper aims to provide a contextualization spanning the 1950s to the early 1960s. This of Greul’s work in order to argue that his prints scarcity of information is perhaps why there are played a crucial role in the rise of the limited references to him or his work in books printmaking medium among Aboriginal artists on Northwest Coast art. However, Edwin Hall of the Northwest Coast. One of Greul’s and Margaret Blackman are the exception, and promotional flyers, found in the Carleton in their book Northwest Coast Indian Graphics University Art Gallery’s MacDonald collection, they state: will be the foundation from which this ! argument derives (Figure 1). A non-Indian, Charles Greul, began making Leslie Dawn provides a succinct silk-screen designs on rice paper about the description of the rise of printmaking in same time [as Ellen Neel] or slightly later. Northwest Coast art in his catalogue essay for Although his designs were not very The Northwest Coast Native Print. According authentic, the prints were inexpensive and to Dawn, the two decades between the 1940s sold very well on the local tourist market… Beyond their historical interest, Greul prints and the late 1960s encompassed a period of are important because some artists increased artistic production that created a maintain that they began producing silk climate that would support and encourage this screen prints in reaction to Greul’s work, upcoming movement.2 However, it was not hoping to gain public appreciation of true until the mid-1970s that printmaking came to 1 Northwest Coast Indian design. [Emphasis prominence. Its emergence is particularly my own] astounding as, according to Bill Reid, “just ! putting a design on paper, whether painted, Authentic. The tourist market. Reactive. These drawn or printed is without precedent.”3 terms, taken from the above quotation, In the early 1900s it was generally represent the issues Greul and his work bring ! believed that Aboriginal arts would soon be !1 RENDER | THE CARLETON GRADUATE JOURNAL OF ART AND CULTURE VOLUME TWO extinct and thus various collecting programs disappearing Aboriginal cultures was replaced were created in order to preserve what by that of their “revival.” remained.4 It was also during this period that This “revival” of Northwest Coast art is the National Museum omitted showing the succinctly described by Blackman and Hill production of artworks by Aboriginal peoples thusly: as they believed the resulting works were “best ! presented in their appropriated form, as the A revival, termed by some a Renaissance, subject of images done by non-Native artists.”5 of Northwest Coast art began in the 1960s, Emily Carr’s work is such an example. Not only accompanied, not coincidentally, by a growing interest on the part of the Indians was she producing paintings of Northwest themselves in their past and a dramatic Coast aboriginal life, but she believed in the increase in ceremonialism. In many forthcoming extinction of Aboriginal art. respects, the impetus for this revival was Furthermore, she disagreed with the emerging internal, arising from a growing realization musings of a “revival” of Native arts by Native that aspects of the old lifeways had value in 7 artists. In a letter to Alice Ravenhill, Director of the modern world. the British Columbia Indian Arts and Welfare ! Society (BCIAWS), Carr states: With additional aid from non-Aboriginal ! organizations, such as the BCIAWS which I think you will understand that I love wanted to “revive and transform Native art,” Indians and Indian things but I do not the 1960s saw a “sudden increase in the favour a re-hash for the sake of decoration number of Native artists who turned to when their great original use is gone. It silkscreen prints as a new means of self- seems to be an indignity to use them and expression.”8 The print medium was especially these totem symbols for ornamentation suited to this as it allowed artists a new only. Mind you I have been guilty myself. I used to put Indian designs on pottery freedom from which to work. Non-traditional, it where they do not belong. My designs were was free from both cultural and historical true and genuine but I came to feel it constraints, thereby becoming an “arena of vulgarized them, pampers the tourist and e x p e r i m e n t a t i o n ” f o r m a n y a r t i s t s , potters who knew nothing at all about subsequently leading to an “expansion of the Indian (or any other art) made a horrible boundaries of traditional art forms.”9 mongrel jumble. Neither Indian nor White Consequently, many artists have realized that which so disgusted me I stopped short… This generation of Indian carvers cannot do “silkscreens are ideal both for producing the same. He could only make shoddy traditional Northwest Coast Indian designs and make-believes. Why try and force them for creating contemporary designs drawing back to what is done with and should be upon traditional motifs and styles.”10 This decently folded away. Let Indian art great in freedom of expression was combined with an the past, stop right there, rather than awareness that the prints would be viewed becoming meaningless ornamentation.6 ! and distributed among a non-Aboriginal At the end of her letter she concludes by consumer public. As Dawn states, “Non-Native saying “Perhaps all my ideas are wrong.” While in origin, it could nonetheless assert a growing her ideas were not uncommon for the early sense of native identity and culture within the 20th century, in a few decades the belief in context of white culture, without violating its 11 ! own history or losing its own special identity.” !2 RENDER | THE CARLETON GRADUATE JOURNAL OF ART AND CULTURE VOLUME TWO However, Greul’s prints were created both “Renaissance” of Northwest Coast art, before this revival occurred and before the occurring in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, actively medium’s popularity was established. disproves theories that Aboriginal arts and To further discuss Greul’s work I will use culture had been irrevocably lost. However, one of his promotional flyers, donated to Greul would have been working in a period CUAG in 1999 by George and Joanne when this belief was still prominent, thereby MacDonald (See figure 1). In its upper left hand placing him in a position of power as corner, Greul provides a title: “Pacific “appropriator.” Northwest Coast Indian Designs” (Figure 2). He In his article Ontologies of the Image fails to announce that he is a non-Aboriginal and Economies of Exchange, Fred Myers man working with designs foreign to him. discusses appropriation in relation to Aboriginal Regardless of whether his non-Aboriginal “art.”14 The term is in quotations, both by audience was aware of this, many members of Myers and myself, as most Aboriginal objects his Aboriginal audience were, and their that we in the West call “art” were not subsequent anger was a leading factor in their conceived of this way by the cultures within decision to use his medium in order to which they were created. In Evan Maurer’s correctly depict their designs - an argument article Determining Quality in Native American that will be demonstrated later in this paper Art, he states that many objects from Native using the work of Robert Davidson. American culture, which we in the West would The term appropriation describes a consider art, have a functional purpose or were process through which someone else “speaks based on utilitarian prototypes. Furthermore, for, defines, describes, represents, uses or few Native American languages have words recruits the images, stories, experience and that correspond to “art” and “artist.” He dreams of others for their own.”12 According to argues: Isabella Alexander, author of the article White ! Law, Black Art which discusses art Our modern willingness to consider appropriation in Australia, the “appropriation of aesthetics and beauty apart from qualities of technical skill is one symptom of the art must be viewed within [the] larger context separation of art from life that exists in our 13 of systematic colonization.” This statement culture. However, in traditional Native rightly implies that an imbalance of power is at American cultures, art was totally integrated the fore of art appropriation, specifically in into the social fabric, and many individuals settler societies. The artist whose work is of both sexes produced some sort of being appropriated is often overpowered, object that reflected a concern for the 15 figuratively speaking, by the artist who is harmonious union of beauty and function. appropriating. Greul fills the latter role in his ! Although the classification of Aboriginal art position as a non-Aboriginal man. In the half- has moved quite rightly from that of “artefact” century before his prints, Aboriginal peoples of to “art,” the term’s Western connotations the Northwest Coast were forced by the Indian ascribe great power and prestige to the artist Act to stop many of their ceremonial traditions and great reverence to their works.