Provenance:

Private Collection, British Columbia

Note:

Speck’s work and his dedication to teaching has inspired generations of artists. Northwest Coast artist Bill Reid told the CBC in 1964 that Speck’s drawings “are imaginative in their concept, often going far beyond anything attempted before in Kwakiutl art.” Reid saw Speck’s work as being deeply rooted in his knowledge of the cosmologies of his people. Todd Ayotte, associate director of the Derek Simpkins Gallery of Tribal Art, wrote that “Speck’s paintings speak to the viewer with a clarity and a sense of immediacy. A striking aspect of Speck’s work is its ability to invoke a three-dimensional 'space' within the confines of a limited design field.”

Writing for a 2012 exhibition of Speck’s paintings, co-curator Karen Duffek explains that his work “brought forward a new way of picturing Kwakwak’awkw ritual dances and mythological characters. His subjects came from own, lived, contemporary experience in the potlatch as a ceremonial singer and dancer, and he sometimes depicted supernatural beings mapped onto the landscape features of Tlawit’sis territory.” She remarks on the painterly qualities of his work, which may be unexpected for viewers expecting flatter representations in Northwest Coast art.