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Art Canadian

Jack Shadbolt and the Coastal Indian Image

by (author) Marjorie M. Halpin

Publisher
UBC Press
Initial publish date
Jan 1986
Category
Canadian, Native American, General, General
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780774802628
    Publish Date
    Jan 1986
    List Price
    $24.95
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9780774844888
    Publish Date
    Nov 2011
    List Price
    $19.95

Classroom Resources

Where to buy it

Description

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.

About the author

Contributor Notes

Marjorie M. Halpin is an associate professor of anthropology at the University of British Columbia.

Editorial Reviews

Rich with well-chosen reproductions of Indian artefacts, old photographs, and especially Shadbolt's drawings and paintings.

University of Toronto Quarterly