Hawthorn Audrey. Kwakiutl Art

University of Washington Press, 1979. — 272 p. — ISBN: 0-295-95674-7.Nurtured by a benevolent land and guided by a sophisticated mythology, the Kwakiutl Indians of the British Columbia coast developed an art that is characterized by variety, skill, and power. Even after white culture began to interfere with the Indians' traditional living patterns, their art, firmly rooted in ceremony, continued to flourish and produced an exuberant array of carved masks, house posts, totem poles, feast dishes, rattles, whistles, and other objects. In 1927, the beginnings of what is now a superb collection of Kwakiutl art were assembled at the University of British Columbia. Audrey Hawthorn has played a key role in helping this collection grow. She first documented its riches in Art of the Kwakiutl Indians and Other Northwest Coast Tribes (1967), a book long out of print and now a prized collector's item. In this exceptional new book she both elaborates upon and refines the first. With an abundance of new material and photographs, she introduces the craft and technology of Northwest Coast Indian art, discusses in detail the wellsprings of its central images, and carefully reviews the significance of such important cultural features as the lineage house and the totem pole. The re-emergence of old themes in new forms of graphic art is touched upon, and some of the important figures in the preservation and revitalization of the tradition, especially Mungo and Abayah Martin, are portrayed in photographs and biographical sketches.
Mrs. Hawthorn's earlier book was acclaimed as "a near perfect catalog of the art of the Northwest Coast" (American Anthropologist). Kwakiutl Art is a worthy successor, a celebration of one of the world's most expressive artistic traditions.