The Northwest Coast of North America has long been recognized as one of the world’s canonical art zones. This volume records and scrutinizes the history of how and why this has come about. A work of critical historiography, it makes accessible for the first time in one place a broad selection of the 250 years of writing on Northwest Coast art. The contributors – leading scholars, writers, and artists – provide perspectives on the diverse intellectual traditions that have influenced, stimulated, and clashed with each other. In unsettling the conventions that have shaped the idea of Northwest Coast Native art, this book joins the lively, often heated, and now global, debates about what constitutes Native art and who should decide.

Charlotte Townsend-Gault is professor emerita in the Department of Art History, Visual Culture and Theory, and a research associate in the Department of Anthropology, at the University of British Columbia. She is the co-editor of Bill Reid and Beyond: Expanding on Modern Native Art (UW Press, 2004) and Native Art of the Northwest Coast: A History of Changing Ideas (UBC Press, 2013).

Charlotte Townsend-Gault's profile page

Jennifer Kramer holds a joint position as assistant professor in the department of anthropology and as curator of the Pacific Northwest at the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia. She has worked with the Nuxalk Nation of Bella Coola, BC, since 1994 on cultural renewal, Nuxalk-controlled education, art production, representation, and repatriation, and the art market. Kramer has worked with the Kwakwaka'wakw since 2004 to collaborate on the care and curation of their cultural heritage in collections at the Museum of Anthropology. She lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Jennifer Kramer's profile page

Ḳi-ḳe-in's profile page

• Winner, Jeanne Clarke Award for Publication, Prince George Public Library
• Winner, Canada Prize in the Humanities, Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences
• Winner, Melva J. Dwyer Award, Art Libraries Society of North America, Canada

This work is an anthology, akin to improvisational jazz – embroidered around a core theme – but allowing every contributor remarkable latitude, creativity, and individuality. Subtitled “a history of changing ideas,” it indeed questions many long-held assumptions in the field, and posits fresh notions on contemporaneity. It also works to suggest what might be appropriate, respectful, and well-informed means of appreciating, sharing, and studying ceremonial objects, and the Native Northwest cultures which imbued them with life…it is rare indeed that one encounters a book with the capacity to make the reader feel woefully uninformed, while simultaneously tempering with the unflinchingly illustrative personal narratives of Native elders, Haida manga, and thought-provoking arguments on cultural patrimony…to the degree that any criticism can be made of this volume, it would only be that its sheer size may deter the casual observer who sees it on a shelf. This would truly be a shame, since its wealth of information, multiplicity of perspectives, diversity of opinion, and review of historical literature would make it a terrific resource for any library.

ARLIS/NA Reviews

This volume balances solid, modem scholarship with an anthology of earlier writings. It will be indispensable for anyone with a scholarly interest in Native American art, and very important for anyone interested in the art and culture of indigenous communities. Summing Up: Essential.

CHOICE, March 2014

The scale of this undertaking is unprecedented in the art historical and anthropological literature of the Northwest Coast and, more broadly, in regard to Indigenous cultural expressions in North America and beyond ... The depth of research contained within its covers and the commitment to multivocality, interdisciplinarity, and consultation, are groundbreaking.

Revue d'art canadienne / Canadian Art Review (RACAR), August 2014