Form and Freedom

Paintings, baskets, blankets, dance shirts, combs, hats, ladles: 102 articles, first collected as curios, but now forming an exhibition of remarkable and intriguing tribal art. Most of the fine, old pieces in this exhibition were picked up by sailors between 1778 and 1830 and taken back to England or Boston to become the delight of antiquarians and the marvel of school children.

The wonder is that so many specimens survive to this day. There is a Salish spindle whorl as fragile as a biscuit; a rattle (made to represent a cockle) which lacks the natural strength of an eggshell. Most were articles which were used and used well; ladles are saturated with the grease of cooking, a pipe has a heavy encrustation of paint, dirt and grease, the design on a seal dish has been almost worn away with handling.

Yet somehow they survived the attention of curio hunters and tourists, the well-intentioned storage by missionaries and anthropologists, to appear in various American universities and museums and a very few private collections.

The emphasis of the exhibition is on art. The carvings, often inlaid with abalone, convey a feeling of strength and simplicity. It is an exhibition of small things, articles designed for utility, yet so beautiful in form or decoration that they become examples of flawless primitive art.

An important and entirely absorbing exhibition.

Sourced from: Exhibition press release