Jack Shadbolt and the Coastal Indian Image
64 pages, 6 x 9
64 photos, 24 in colour
Paperback
Release Date:01 Jan 1986
ISBN:9780774802628
Jack Shadbolt was inspired in his formative years by his contact with
Emily Carr and with her brooding works portraying the remnants of
Indian villages against the overwhelming wilderness. He made sketches
of Indian artefacts and the Cowichan Reserve in the 1930s, but it was
only after World War II that elements of Indian art began to show up in
his style. Marjorie Halpin finds in the changes in the way Indian forms
occur in Shadbolt's paintings an appropriate expression of the
changing attitudes of British Columbians to Native society and the
political will the Native people now manifest. The place of Indian
motifs in Shadbolt's painting can be broadly correlated with the
cultural quickening of Indian society in recent years. They reveal his
emotional sympathy with Kwagiutl, Haida, and Tlingit forms and his deep
response to the Indians' spiritual and historic presence in the
British Columbia environment.
Emily Carr and with her brooding works portraying the remnants of
Indian villages against the overwhelming wilderness. He made sketches
of Indian artefacts and the Cowichan Reserve in the 1930s, but it was
only after World War II that elements of Indian art began to show up in
his style. Marjorie Halpin finds in the changes in the way Indian forms
occur in Shadbolt's paintings an appropriate expression of the
changing attitudes of British Columbians to Native society and the
political will the Native people now manifest. The place of Indian
motifs in Shadbolt's painting can be broadly correlated with the
cultural quickening of Indian society in recent years. They reveal his
emotional sympathy with Kwagiutl, Haida, and Tlingit forms and his deep
response to the Indians' spiritual and historic presence in the
British Columbia environment.
Rich with well-chosen reproductions of Indian artefacts, old photographs, and especially Shadbolt's drawings and paintings.
Marjorie M. Halpin is an associate professor ofanthropology at the University of British Columbia.
Foreword
Introduction
In Search of Freedom
From Primitivism to Place
Jack Shadbolt's journal, 24 February 1985
"Act of Art"
Cultural Transformations
Jack Shadbolt's journal, 9 July 1985
Lenders to the Exhibition
List of Paintings and Artifacts
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
