Northwest Coast Indian Painting: House Fronts and Interior Screens

Rating:
Summary: Northwest Coast Indian Painting goes far beyond "art"...
Review: First, it is a mystery to me why this title doesn't appear from search words "Tlingit, Haida or Salish" since its content goes far beyond Indian Painting/art. While Indian painting, specifically house fronts and interior screens (dying arts enjoying a resurgence) are extremely well covered and illustrated in this book Malin adeptly intertwines culture, geography and history which makes these art forms come alive and take on meaning beyond 'art for art's sake.' This book could have been complete with just the 120 pages of fantastic color and black and white picture and illustrations -- that combined with 160 pages detailing and clearly explaining geography, culture and cultural influences and historical information relating to the Northwest Coast tribes of Alaska and Canada (Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, Tsimshian, Bella Coola, Kwakiutl, Salish and Nuu chaa nulth) make this a "must" for anyone interested in these tribes -- either in their art or culture and history! Art was integral to the daily life of these natives...tools made and used for daily subsistence and living were artistically fashioned using the crests "owned" by each clan. Social rank and wealth were at the heart of exterior house painting and interior screens. The author's 55 year fascination with the tribes of the northwest coast is clearly evident in this book.

Rating:
Summary: Northwest Coast Indian Painting goes far beyond "art"...
Review: First, it is a mystery to me why this title doesn't appear from search words "Tlingit, Haida or Salish" since its content goes far beyond Indian Painting/art. While Indian painting, specifically house fronts and interior screens (dying arts enjoying a resurgence) are extremely well covered and illustrated in this book Malin adeptly intertwines culture, geography and history which makes these art forms come alive and take on meaning beyond 'art for art's sake.' This book could have been complete with just the 120 pages of fantastic color and black and white picture and illustrations -- that combined with 160 pages detailing and clearly explaining geography, culture and cultural influences and historical information relating to the Northwest Coast tribes of Alaska and Canada (Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, Tsimshian, Bella Coola, Kwakiutl, Salish and Nuu chaa nulth) make this a "must" for anyone interested in these tribes -- either in their art or culture and history! Art was integral to the daily life of these natives...tools made and used for daily subsistence and living were artistically fashioned using the crests "owned" by each clan. Social rank and wealth were at the heart of exterior house painting and interior screens. The author's 55 year fascination with the tribes of the northwest coast is clearly evident in this book.

Rating:
Summary: An outstanding book - worth the price just for the art
Review: This is one of my top-5 books about Northwest Coast artwork. It is really two books in one.

The first half of the book goes into all sorts of information about the Northwest Coast tribes, including where and how they lived, and on and on. The tone occasionally is a bit more academic than I'd prefer, but for the most part is well-written, easy to read, and very interesting.

The second half of the book is page after page after page of Northwest Coast artwork examples. To be honest, I'd have thought the book was worth the price even without the first half. The artwork section is wonderful, with a really nice variety of examples, And the layout of the book (semi-landscape) allows the author to show us much larger versions than we normally see of this type of art.

This is especially true for the things this books features (house fronts and interior screens), which naturally are much wider than they are high. I definitely recommend this book for someone building a collection of books about Northwest Coast INdians and Art.