Early Northwest Coast Print Innovators

Printmaking is definitely not a traditional art form amongst First Nations cultures in the Pacific Northwest. Steam-bending wood, painting, and carving have always been common activities within Native communities here on the West Coast but lithographs, silkscreening, and etching...not so much. In the early 1960s - as artists such as Robert Davidson (Haida), David Gladstone (Heiltsuk), and Earl Muldon (Gitxsan) were completing major projects to revitalize their cultural art forms - screenprinting was introduced to First Nations artists as an affordable way to encourage aesthetic experimentation and market the art. Northwest Coast Native design is two-dimensional and based on formline composition to begin with, so the transition from traditional forms to printed paper was logical. The early years of Northwest Coast printmaking were incredibly successful as artists were producing both formal, conventional works and progressive, unconventional works. These prints were often made as limited editions of several hundred, so they entered the market at reasonable price points as well.

Native Art Prints makes an effort to acquire these early and innovative prints, as they are becoming rarer and rarer. Here are some of our favourites:

This print is titled Robin's Egg and was produced by Gitksan artist Phil Janze in 1981. Still producing to this day, Janze is an innovator in design and jewellery who works with unusual motifs and materials. In this charming piece, Janze has used both an atypical symbol and colour. Breaking away from strict Northwest Coast formline design, he has illustrated the baby robin in negative space and confined the design within the shape of an egg. This creates a spatial tension in the piece, which is deceptively complex.

This print by Donnie Yeomans is from 1979 and is enigmatically titled A White Finger Pointing to the Moon. One initially views the shape of the design as a whole to be the so-called 'finger' in the title of the piece...but this finger is black. We view the black in this piece to represent the night sky, with the small white tri-neg at the bottom of the piece to be the finger pointing upwards. The moon is in blue and red, and has been personified as is common with sun and moon figures in Northwest Coast art. This classic print is priced at $300.00 at Native Art Prints.

Now deceased, Carrier artist Larry Rosso is perhaps best known for his deeply-carved and carefully-crafted bentwood boxes. However, he also produced a variety of sophisticated and abstracted limited edition prints. This piece, Elements II, is open to interpretation: it can be read as an eagle figure (with the red u-form representing the beak), a large angular salmon head design, or simply shapes from the Northwest Coast lexicon. This piece is from a small edition of 107 and acts as a wonderful reminder of Larry's great contributions to this art form.

Printmaking Terms

Here at Native Art Prints, we sell a variety of graphic works. The act of printing consists of transferring ink to any surface by means of mechanical pressure. This is a general definition, but it applies to the silkscreen, giclee, lithograph, and digital prints that we carry. Screenprinting became an established art form within the Northwest Coast Native market in the late 1970s as institutions such as the Gitanmaax School of Northwest Coast Indian Art and Emily Carr University began promoting printmaking courses to the First Nations community. Artists who are now considered to be masters in the field - such as Robert Davidson, Beau Dick, Joe David, and Lyle Wilson - were among the first to begin experimenting with prints in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Jay Simeon's Killerwhale Silkscreen

We have included some general printmaking terms that are regularly used within the Northwest Coast Native art market below:

Limited Edition Print - Any print that is signed and numbered

Open Edition Print - A print that is not numbered, or "limited", in its production. Open edition prints may be signed, but the number of them produced is often unknown

Giclée Print - This term is derived from the French verb gicler meaning "to squirt". In printmaking, this term is used to describe a fine art digital printing process combining pigment based inks with high quality paper or treated canvas. Giclées in the Northwest Coast Native art market are often limited edition

Silkscreen Print - Also known as a "serigraph", this type of print is made through a stencil method of printmaking in which a design is imposed on a screen of silk or other fine mesh, with blank areas coated with an impermeable substance, and then ink forced through the mesh onto the printing surface

Lithograph - A type of print that requires no etching or stencils but is formed through the process of printing from a plane surface (such as a smooth stone or metal plate) on which the image to be printed is ink-receptive and the blank area ink-repellent. This process results in a high level of detail and can produce works that appear to be hand-drawn or sketched

AP Print - Any print designated as an "artist proof". Artist Proofs are produced at the same time as a limited edition run and are usually 10% the size of the limited edition run from which they originate. AP prints are often given to the artist for personal use, but it is common for these to enter the market as well. They usually carry the same value as limited edition prints, but some people consider them to be more valuable

Printer's Proof - Also known as a "proof print" or "PP", these are small and often numbered editions produced before a large limited edition printing to check quality and design. These are often kept by the printing house, but are occasionally given to the artist

Remarque - A personalized drawing or symbol on a run of prints. Included as a special edition to the title, date, and number of a print, the remarque often adds value to a work