Lot 21
CHARLES EDENSHAW (DAAX’IGANG or TAHAYGEN) (1839-1920), MASSET, HAIDA GWAII
Model Totem Pole, c. 1900-10
argillite, 10.25 x 2.5 x 2 in (26 x 6.3 x 5.1 cm)
unsigned.

Provenance
A Vancouver Collection.

Daax’igang, aka Charles Edenshaw, was a prolific and versatile Haida artist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In the early part of his artistic life, the 1860s, he produced memorable works in support of Haida ceremonial culture, such as carved chests, at least one settee decorated with a graceful dogfish design, at least two transformation masks, wooden bowls with crest images, totem poles, and carved screens, and he painted at least one canoe made by his relative Alfred Davidson. With the arrival of missionaries in the 1870s and their ongoing suppression of Haida traditional culture, Edenshaw and many of his contemporaries turned to producing artworks for sale and trade outside the culture (which was condoned by the missionaries). These included model canoes, model totem poles in wood, model houses painted with crest designs, silver and gold work, as well as carved figures, bowls with crest images, chests with decorated sides, and painted spruce root hats woven by his relatives. Edenshaw also carved figures, elaborate bowls, and model totem poles from argillite, a black carbonaceous shale that had been carved into items for trade with Euro-American sailors since the 1820s.

Daax’igang’s argillite poles, especially in his later years, tended to be richly sculpted, with deeply carved profiles and intertwined subsidiary figures as can be seen in this example. At the top of this pole, a small beaver (identified by its large incisor teeth) with its body facing the pole, clings with its hands and feet to the top of the pole and the figure below, its head turned 180 degrees to look straight outward like the rest of the figures. Why Edenshaw chose his unusual composition is unknown, but it probably represents a tale of Haida oral literature that includes this beaver and the rest of the imagery on this pole. The next figure down is a larger beaver, also with large incisors and holding a stick in its front paws beneath its chin. The textured paddle-tail of the beaver is turned up between its hind feet covering its belly, and the hind legs arc over the upright ears of the figure below. The relative sizes of the two beavers suggests that the lower one is an adult and the upper one possibly a pup, perhaps a troublesome or wayward offspring.

The lower half of the pole includes a tall figure that may be either a sea wolf or sea bear, indicated by the formline-embellished pectoral fins that extend down from the figure’s forelegs. The forelegs themselves are long, reaching down over the shoulders of a subsidiary figure that appears to be either a wolf or bear, perhaps a yearling. The yearling’s forelegs are draped over the larger figure’s forelegs, which reach down to touch upon the pectoral fins. The hind legs of the sea-bear/wolf are short, drawn up as though the figure is seated on the base of the pole. The hind legs of the yearling are also drawn up, its feet resting between the feet of the larger figure.

Edenshaw’s well-defined and developed sculpture reveals these images in an elegant purity, each figure comfortably ensconced in relation to the others without being cramped or bulky. The back of this pole is flat, suggesting a creation after 1900, and it rests on a small base with chamfered edges.

Steven C. Brown

Charles Edenshaw is a true icon of Haida art. His virtuosic skill in several artistic media is legendary, as was his knowledge of Haida art history. Spanning the end of the 19th and the early 20th centuries, his art career was founded on tradition but was truly innovative. Edenshaw’s works and his versatility have inspired generations of Haida artists, and represent the gold standard among collectors of Northwest Coast art. The Vancouver Art Gallery’s major retrospective travelling exhibition of 2013, Charles Edenshaw, was accompanied by a lavish and scholarly catalogue.

References: For an impressive retrospective exhibition catalogue/book on the artist see Robin K. Wright and Daina Augaitis, editors, Charles Edenshaw, (Vancouver Art Gallery and Black Dog Publishing, 2013); the publication has numerous illustrations of argillite poles by Edenshaw. But the artist’s works are widely published elsewhere, including Steven C. Brown, Native Visions: Evolution in Northwest Coast Art from the Eighteenth through the Twentieth Century, (Seattle: Seattle Art Museum / Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 1998), pp. 113-114; Peter L. Macnair and Alan J. Hoover, The Magic Leaves: A History of Haida Argillite Carving, (Victoria: Royal British Columbia Museum, 1984/2002), figs. 193-196, pp. 175-179. For two argillite poles by Edenshaw see also Ralph T. Coe et al, The Responsive Eye: Ralph T. Coe and the Collecting of American Indian Art, (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003), cats. 91, 92. See Helen Abbott, ed., The Spirit Within: Northwest Coast Native Art from the John H. Hauberg Collection, (Seattle: Seattle Art Museum, 1995), cat. 52, p. 145. For an early but quite extensive discussion of his work see Marius Barbeau, Haida Carvers in Argillite, (Ottawa: Department of Northern Affairs and Natural Resources / National Museum of Canada, 1957; repr. 1974), pp. 154-178.