Native Visions: Evolution in Northwest Coast Art from the Eighteenth Through the Twentieth Century

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian Studies at
Concordia University and an avid outdoor recreationist. She is also the
author of The Mountain Is Moving: Japanese Women’s Lives, Kurlek, and
Margaret Laurence: The Long Journey Hom

Native Visions magnificently captures the continuously changing and
evolving traditions in the carving and weaving of Northwest Coast art
since prehistoric times. Its color illustrations bring to life
impressive Native carvings, basketry, hats, and mats—the vivid pinkish
reds, blue-greens, and ambers adding greatly to the authority and beauty
of the works.

The pieces featured here were part of the Native Visions exhibition
organized by the Seattle Art Museum, with Steven C. Brown as the
curator. These carved wooden masks, bowls, boxes, and poles reveal the
power of the tradition, and its flexibility. As Brown notes, “There
will be no ‘last word’ on this subject until the last Northwest
Coast artists lay down their paintbrushes for the last time.”

Brown points out that the ongoing metamorphosis in the tradition, from
earliest times, has been accelerating in recent years, influenced by
modern media and the art market, and that new directions in the
tradition can be attributed to the inspiration of gifted individuals.
The pieces shown here are among the most striking examples of Northwest
Coast art I have seen.

Native Visions is an important addition to the growing body of work on
Pacific Coast aboriginal art.