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Many of these naturalist figures appear very formal: captains in long coats, with a serious look on their faces and hands in their pockets. Others are more humorous or whimsical in nature, but perhaps none so much as this pair of animated caricatures. The usual attention has been paid by the carver to the oddities (from a Haida perspective) of the sailors’ clothes and dressing style, depicting shoes, collars, cuffs, shirt or vest patterns, scarves, and hats. The men’s hair is wavy and long, flowing from cap to collar in 1840s style, and their fair-skinned faces have been detailed in small ivory pieces set in place below their hat brims. The facial expressions are curious, conveying a real personality for each of the two friends. Their posture and whimsical body language add to the magnetic quality of this sculpture representing Boston or King George’s men, as the unfathomable Americans and British were called by Northwest Coast First Peoples. (From the Catalog of the Thaw Collection of American Indian Art, 2nd ed.)
Exhibition HistoryTransformation AGO: Reinstallation 2008, Canadian Wing, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, November 14, 2008 - November 15, 2011.
ProvenanceCollected in California after 1887 by Frederick Hastings Rindge; Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology (R/105), Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1894; Taylor Museum (3992), Colorado Springs, Colorado, 1951
BibliographyGunther, Erna. Indians of the Northwest Coast. Seattle: Seattle Art Museum, 1951, (not ill.).
Christopher, Catherine. "Mauna Loa's "Yankee" Quilts." Yankee Magazine, Vol.21, No.1, (January 1957):33-37.
Harner, Michael J., and Albert B. Elsasser. Art of the Northwest Coast. BerkeleyL University of California, 1965, p. 54.
Roberson Center for the Arts and Sciences. The Artistic Spirit of the North American Indian. Binghampton, NY: Roberson Center for the Arts and Sciences, 1976, pl. 137.
Drew, Leslie and Douglas Wilson. Argillite: Art of the Haida. North Vancouver, British Columbia: Hancock House Publishers Ltd., 1980, p.190, Taylor Museum 3992.
Vincent, Gilbert et al. Art of the North American Indians: The Thaw Collection. Cooperstown, New York: Fenimore Art Museum, 2000, p.348-349.
Jonaitis, Aldona. Art of the Northwest Coast. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2006, pg. 192.
Fognell, Eva and Alexander Brier Marr, eds. Art of the North American Indians: The Thaw Collection at the Fenimore Art Museum, New York: Fenimore Art Museum, 2016, p. 373.
Culture
Haida
Argillite Sailors
Datec. 1845
MediumArgillite, ivory
DimensionsOverall: 18 1/2 × 7 3/4 × 4 1/2 in. (47 × 19.7 × 11.4 cm)
Object numberT0187
Credit LineGift of Eugene V. and Clare E. Thaw.
Photograph by John Bigelow Taylor, NYC
Label TextThe subject matter of Haida argillite carvings has passed through a number of different phases from its inception as a traditional sculpture medium in the early 19th century through its revitalization and re-emergence as a prominent art form in recent decades. Evidence suggests that Haida carvers made little use of this soft, easily workable black stone prior to about 1820. By which time the making of carved objects for exchange with fur traders and sailors was established. The first carvings made for the trade with outsiders generally drew designs form the Haida crest tradition, and focused on tobacco-smoking pipes that had a natural appeal to Euro-American sailors. The earliest examples were relatively small and compact in form. Compositions evolved over time into more extensive, lineal arrangements of figures. Themes represented on these pipes evolved from images of Haida origin to portrayals of the Euro-Americans themselves, in whimsical representations of the sailor’s vessels, tools, and curiosities of shipboard life. The range of images came to be depicted in panel pipes, carved of thin slabs of argillite, incorporating much piercing and overlapping of figures. By the 1830s, interest had developed in the production of small statuettes of officers, sailors, and occasionally women, standing in their dress attire, often highly detailed in the depiction of the garments, hats, hair and/or beard styles, and the personalities of these strangers from worlds away.Many of these naturalist figures appear very formal: captains in long coats, with a serious look on their faces and hands in their pockets. Others are more humorous or whimsical in nature, but perhaps none so much as this pair of animated caricatures. The usual attention has been paid by the carver to the oddities (from a Haida perspective) of the sailors’ clothes and dressing style, depicting shoes, collars, cuffs, shirt or vest patterns, scarves, and hats. The men’s hair is wavy and long, flowing from cap to collar in 1840s style, and their fair-skinned faces have been detailed in small ivory pieces set in place below their hat brims. The facial expressions are curious, conveying a real personality for each of the two friends. Their posture and whimsical body language add to the magnetic quality of this sculpture representing Boston or King George’s men, as the unfathomable Americans and British were called by Northwest Coast First Peoples. (From the Catalog of the Thaw Collection of American Indian Art, 2nd ed.)
Exhibition HistoryTransformation AGO: Reinstallation 2008, Canadian Wing, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, November 14, 2008 - November 15, 2011.
ProvenanceCollected in California after 1887 by Frederick Hastings Rindge; Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology (R/105), Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1894; Taylor Museum (3992), Colorado Springs, Colorado, 1951
BibliographyGunther, Erna. Indians of the Northwest Coast. Seattle: Seattle Art Museum, 1951, (not ill.).
Christopher, Catherine. "Mauna Loa's "Yankee" Quilts." Yankee Magazine, Vol.21, No.1, (January 1957):33-37.
Harner, Michael J., and Albert B. Elsasser. Art of the Northwest Coast. BerkeleyL University of California, 1965, p. 54.
Roberson Center for the Arts and Sciences. The Artistic Spirit of the North American Indian. Binghampton, NY: Roberson Center for the Arts and Sciences, 1976, pl. 137.
Drew, Leslie and Douglas Wilson. Argillite: Art of the Haida. North Vancouver, British Columbia: Hancock House Publishers Ltd., 1980, p.190, Taylor Museum 3992.
Vincent, Gilbert et al. Art of the North American Indians: The Thaw Collection. Cooperstown, New York: Fenimore Art Museum, 2000, p.348-349.
Jonaitis, Aldona. Art of the Northwest Coast. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2006, pg. 192.
Fognell, Eva and Alexander Brier Marr, eds. Art of the North American Indians: The Thaw Collection at the Fenimore Art Museum, New York: Fenimore Art Museum, 2016, p. 373.
On View
On view
