Joe David

This article is about the Pacific Northwest artist. For the Mohawk artist, see Joseph Tehawehron David.
Joe David
Born June 30, 1946
Opitsaht, British Columbia
Nationality Nuu-chah-nulth, Canadian
Known for carving, printmaking
Movement Northwest Coast art

Joe David (born June 30, 1946) is a Nuu-chah-nulth artist, a member of the Tla-o-qui-aht Band of the Nuu-chah-nulth people,[1][2][3][4] also formally "adopted" into the Haida people,[5][6] whose work is identified with the contemporary Northwest Coast art movement;[3] among his close associates are teacher and art historian Bill Holm, Duane Pasco, and his cousin Ron Hamilton.[1][4] He is also a singer of traditional Nuu-chah-nulth songs, and has a strong interest in shamanic traditions,[7] both those from his own culture and from others.[3]

Early life and education

David was born in the Clayoquot village of Opitsaht (on Meares Island off the west coast of Vancouver Island).[1][4] His father Hyacinth David gave him a strong grounding in his cultural heritage.[7] He studied art in the Job Corps,[8] attended art school in San Marcos, Texas and Seattle, and worked briefly as a commercial artist[1][4] (among other places, for Seattle's Bon Marché department store[8]) before, in 1969, turning more specifically to Northwest Coast Native art[1][4] after he was "blitzed" by the Burke Museum collection of Northwest Native art, curated by Bill Holm.[9]

Artwork

He was one of the innovators of serigraphy featuring traditional Northwest Coast Native motifs,[4] and has worked in a variety of media,[2] including carving totem poles.[1] His eclecticism has involved an interest not only in his native traditions and the broad mainstream of contemporary North American culture, but also in other Native American traditions (he participates annually in a Sun Dance in the southwestern United States)[7] and, for example, by Maori art.[3] Rejecting the view that traditional Northwest Native cultures should somehow remain frozen in time, he has remarked "The fact is, there is always change and our people have always been comfortable with it."[5]

Collections

David has pieces in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City[10] and in the Museum of Anthropology at UBC.[11]

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Joe David, Lattimer Gallery (Vancouver, British Columbia). Accessed 7 April 2007.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Joe David, Peterson Gallery (between Shelton and Hoodsport, Washington). Accessed 7 April 2007.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Joe David, Spirit Wrestler Gallery (Vancouver, British Columbia). Accessed 7 April 2007.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 Joe David, Stonington Gallery (Seattle, Washington). Accessed 7 April 2007.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Edwin Smith, Review of Steltzer, Ulli. A Haida Potlatch. 1986, A Tribute to The University of Washington Press, Association for the Study of American Indian Literatures (ASAIL)
  6. ↑ Sheila Farr, The many faces of Northwest native art, Seattle Times, April 17, 2007. Accessed online 19 April 2007. This is the source for Tla-o-qui-aht Band.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Joe David, Douglas Reynolds Gallery at the Wayback Machine (archived September 20, 2000). Accessed 7 April 2007.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Sheila Farr, The many faces of Northwest native art, Seattle Times, April 17, 2007. Accessed online 19 April 2007.
  9. ↑ Sheila Farr, The many faces of Northwest native art, Seattle Times, April 17, 2007. Accessed online 19 April 2007. The quotation using the word "blitzed" reads, in full, "Here was this collection that Bill Holm had curated and understood and treated properly — it was like, wow! This was not the academic, Mickey Mouse stuff. I was just blitzed. It was just between the eyes, like man, I've got to not only study and learn this, but I've got to master it."
  10. ↑ Metropolitan Museum of Art online catalog, accessed 2014-08-13.
  11. ↑ Museum of Anthropology online catalog, accessed 2014-08-13.