Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Art of the Northwest Coast Indians by Robert Bruce Inverarity Art of the Northwest Coast Indians. Here is the most complete text and general collection of illustrations of Northwest Coast Indian art written in the last twenty years. The art objects shown and described in this book are to the anthropologist and the artist what original documents are to the historian. Each individual work of art shows in concrete form the speculations about life and nature which took root among these primitive peoples. As such they form part of the vast mosaic of culture patterns of early North America. Prefacing the illustrations is a text divided into two parts. The first discusses the tribes, their social life, culture, and religion. The second part deals with general aspects of primitive art, as well as the main features of the art of the Northwest Coast Indians. Mr. Inverarity describes and explains their consistent and highly developed use of symbols and the formulas used in their skillful adaptation of designs. Robert Bruce Inverarity, 1909 - 1999. Robert Bruce Inverarity was a prominent artist, art educator, museum director, author, and anthropologist. He wrote a number of books on the art of the Native Americans of the North West Coast. Although Inverarity was born in Seattle, Washington, his Canada connection began when the family spent much of Bruce's youth living in Calgary AB, where Inverarity’s father ran a local theatre, and although they moved back to Seattle when Inverarity was a teenager, he would later spend time living, working and exhibiting in Vancouver, BC. While still attending high school in Seattle, Inverarity shared a studio with Mark Tobey and studied under him for a time. He later took over Tobey’s teaching position at Cornish School of the Arts in Seattle, and then directed the School of Creative Art in Vancouver, Canada. It was at this time that Inverarity hiked the east and west coasts of Vancouver Island, studying the legends of local Indian tribes and collecting artifacts along the way. It was also during this time that Inverarity regularly showed his artwork. He had a one-man show at Edward Weston's gallery in Carmel, CA, (1929) and another of his paintings at the Blanding Sloan Gallery, (1929), he exhibited with the Brooklyn Society of Etchers, (1931) and had a one-man show at the Hudson Bay Company in Vancouver, BC (1932). His work was shown at Gump's in San Francisco, (1935), and he had a piece exhibited at the New York World's Fair, (1939). He was a member of the Northwest Printmakers Society, the California Watercolor Society, and the Royal Society of Arts, London. Then suddenly, Inverarity stopped exhibiting his work in 1941, but he continued to create art and pursue photography. Among his best-known works are his portraits of artist friends such as Max Ernst, Mark Tobey, Morris Graves, Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray. In 1936, he became the state director of the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration. In 1939, he moved from the Federal Art Project to direct the Art and Crafts Project. His leadership in these projects was controversial, as Inverarity had nothing more than a high school diploma, and was criticized for being terribly under-qualified. However, Inverarity held his position and published several books during this time; Movable Masks and Figures of the North Pacific Coast Indians (1940), followed by Moveable Masks and Figures of the North Pacific Coast Indians (1941), Northwest Coast Indian Art (1946), and The Art of the Northwest Coast Indians (1950). During World War II, Inverarity served as Chief of Design for Camouflage for the U.S. Navy and then as an Official Navy War Artist (1943-1945). It wasn’t until after the war, in 1946, that Inverarity finally earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in art and anthropology from the University of Washington. Not stopping there, he went on to obtain both a Master's degree and Ph.D. in fine arts from Fremont University in Los Angeles, where he studied with Hilaire Hiler. With his fresh credentials, Inverarity’s career as a museum director began in 1949 when he became director of the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, NM. In 1954, Inverarity's dismissal from the Museum of International Folk Art caused much controversy in New Mexico and in the museum world in general. Most of the staff resigned in protest, triggering an investigation by the American Association of Museums. Inverarity rebounded from this setback quickly, and began working as director of the Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake, NY, he held that position for 11 years, until 1965. After a period working as an illustrator and designer for the University of California Press, he returned to the East Coast in 1969 to serve as director of the Philadelphia Maritime Museum. He sold his personal collection of Northwest Coast Indian art to the British Museum's Museum of Mankind in 1975 and retired in 1976. Inverarity lived in La Jolla, California until his death in 1999. Selected Collections The Feckless Collection, Vancouver BC. The mask that inspired the Seahawks logo. During the past few years, people have been speculating about the design influence for the Seattle Seahawks team logo, but until recently the fact that the mask that inspired the designers had been publicly identified in a 1975 Newspaper article had been forgotten (1) . At the time of the 1975 logo design, the central and northern Northwest Coast art (traditional to the Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian and Kwakwaka’wakw tribes of Alaska and northern British Columbia) were the most readily recognized design styles from the Pacific Northwest Coast. The reasons for this are multi-faceted going back to the late 19th century popularity of the totem poles, seen by tourists on steam ship trips traveling to Alaska and British Columbia. One of these poles was appropriated (literally stolen) and used as a symbol of Seattle starting in 1899, gaining even more popularity during the Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition of 1909. (2) Burke Museum Curator Emeritus Bill Holm’s pivotal 1965 book, Northwest Coast Indian Art: An Analysis of Form , (3) provided us with the vocabulary now used to describe this northern art style, further bringing this northern design system into public awareness. These northern Northwest Coast art forms eclipsed the more subtle and private expressions of art made by the local Coast Salish tribes throughout western Washington, until local Coast Salish artists such as William Shelton and Joseph Hillaire began carving Salish-style “Story Poles” and displaying them publicly throughout the region. (4) The original Seahawks logo designers referenced books about Northwest Coast art for the design inspiration: (Seahawks general manager) Thompson said the NFL firm did refer to some books on Northwest Indian culture. 'Our intent was to follow the Northwest Indian culture, but there was no condition placed on them (NFL) in designing.' (5) I recently asked Bill Holm if the NFL designers had ever contacted him, and he said no, they never did, but that he knew they had relied on published illustrations of the art. Reaching to his bookshelf, he pulled Robert Bruce Inverarity’s 1950 book, Art of the Northwest Coast Indians , (6) off the shelf, and flipping through the illustrations he found the source for the Seahawks logo: a Kwakwaka’wakw transformation mask depicting an eagle (in its closed form) with a human face inside (revealed when the mask opens when danced). Origin of the Seahawks logo: The story unfolds. It’s been one year since we first explored the connection between a Native mask from the Pacific Northwest and the original Seattle Seahawks logo. What a year it has been! Now, as the Seahawks prepare to "re-Pete" their visit to the Super Bowl, here’s what we’ve learned so far about the mask that inspired the logo. A connection discovered. In the lead-up to last year’s Super Bowl, Burke Museum Curator of Native American Art Robin K. Wright’s art history students were curious about the design influence for the Seattle Seahawks’ original logo. When Wright broached the subject with Curator Emeritus Bill Holm, he pointed her to a photograph of a Kwakwaka’wakw (pronounced: KWA-kwuh-kyuh-wakw) eagle mask in Robert Bruce Inverarity’s 1950 survey, Art of the Northwest Coast Indians . The mask bore an undeniable resemblance to the 1976 logo; the Seahawks later unearthed a 1975 Seattle PI article in their archives, in which Seahawks General Manager John Thompson identified the mask as THE definitive inspiration for the Hawks’ logo. Shared widely by both football and Native art fans, the blog post on the discovery made its way to the Hudson Museum at the University of Maine, who alerted the Burke to the mask’s location in their collection and offered to loan it to the Burke. The mask’s journey. The mask made the 3,200 mile journey from Maine to Seattle—thanks to the power of crowdfunding and generous support from Bekins Northwest, the “official mover of the Seattle Seahawks.” Once the mask arrived safely and acclimated to our climate, we began carefully preparing it for public display. We asked artist Bruce Alfred, a member of the Namgis Band of the Kwakwaka’wakw Nations, who was visiting the Burke, to study the mask. Bruce and our curators uncovered many new details in just a few days. • • • Previous Next. Bekins Northwest employees unload the mask. • • • Previous Next. Burke Museum staff carefully unpacks the mask after its arrival. • • • Previous Next. Bruce Alfred studying details on the mask.