American Indian Culture and Research Journal

The article examines the work of two First Nations artists active along the Northwest Coast during the assimilation era (1867-1951): Frederick Alexie and Mathias Joe. Although they were by no means the only Northwest Coast artists active during this period, I have selected them specifically because they are not normally discussed in the plethora of books and articles on Northwest Coast art published since 1947. Neither, for example, appear in the pivotal 1980 catalogue The Legacy, the who’s who of historic and contemporary Northwest Coast artists. They did, however, receive Euro-Canadian attention during their lives and shared a willingness to produce work drawing on what might be called non-traditional sources of inspiration. Through their creations, these men also addressed Native and non-Native publics about the central issues of land, education, and First Nations status in Canadian society. In these ways, they disrupt the paradigm commonly applied to Northwest Coast art that privileges objects produced solely for ceremonial use and sees the history of Northwest Coast art as one of a “classic”mid-nineteenth-century climax, early-twentieth-century “decline,” and mid-twentieth-century “renaissance.” This outdated, European-derived model fails to account for the complex political and social circumstances that informed both the production and reception of Northwest Coast objects during the era of assimilation and undervalues the ways in which indigenous arts contributed to the public assertion of and debate over Indian policy in Canada.