Additional Images

Provenance:

Private Collection, British Columbia

Note:

Among the Coast’s most prolific and widely collected artists in the 20th century, Mowachaht-Muchalaht artist Jimmy John (Tyee Maquinna) carved and painted pieces for ritual use as well as for sale and trade for nearly a century.

Born at Friendly Cove, British Columbia, John was a direct descendant of the important Chief Maquinna, a powerful and influential figure on Western Vancouver Island in the late 18th and early 19th century. Maquinna notably is thought to have traded with Captain Cook during his 1778 visit to the Coast. He is recalled in the published journals of Blacksmith John R. Jewitt, who was taken as a slave by Maquinna for a period of three years beginning in 1803 during the ill-fated voyage of the fur-trading ship Boston.[1]

The identity of the subject of the present polychrome wood mask is unclear. Although strung with kinetic panels of the type found on sun masks, the central face exhibits protruding incisors and raised ears typically associated with depictions of Pugwis. The mask is inscribed verso “...Chief of Wickininish / Nootka.” Notably the work is closely related to a mask documented in the 1976 publication Indian Artists at Work by Uli Steltzer, identified only as “Maquinna mask.”[2]

[1] John R. Jewitt, The Adventures and Sufferings of John R. Jewitt, Captive of Maquinna (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1987)
[2] Uli Steltzer, Indian Artists at Work (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1977), 83.