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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Christine Steingass, post: 13100751, member: 114460&quot;]You sent me down a rabbit hole with these, so I went directly to the Hallie Ford Museum&#039;s own documentation rather than trying to identify the masks from appearance alone.</p><p><br /></p><p>That is a seriously interesting collection. These are works from the George and Colleen Hoyt Collection of Northwest Coast Art, and the museum actually publishes a 19-page guide identifying the individual artists and works displayed in this gallery.</p><p><br /></p><p>The one you tagged [USER=301]@komokwa[/USER] is Calvin Hunt&#039;s Komokwa, 2018. Hunt is a Kwakwaka&#039;wakw artist born in 1956. According to the museum, the mask is made from red cedar, copper, horsehair and paint.</p><p><br /></p><p>Komokwa is described by the museum as the Chief of the Undersea World, or the Copper Maker, in Kwakwaka&#039;wakw and Haida traditions. He is associated with rising tides and whirlpools and with sea creatures including Sculpin, Octopus, Killer Whale and Loon. The museum specifically notes that this particular mask has a blue loon resting on top of his head. Those round forms surrounding the face may represent octopus suckers, bubbles or sea anemones.</p><p><br /></p><p>I was also able to identify that wonderful white-haired horned mask in your photographs. That&#039;s Joe David&#039;s Mountain Goat mask, 2017, made from red cedar, goat hair, operculum shell and paint. David described it as a Tsimshian crest mask, and the museum explains that Mountain Goat functions as a guardian/guide associated with movement between the earth and sky realms.</p><p><br /></p><p>There are some major Northwest Coast artists represented in this collection: Dempsey Bob, Beau Dick, Calvin Hunt, George Hunt Jr., Henry Hunt, Richard Hunt, Stanley Hunt, Joe David, Susan Point, Tim Paul and others. For example, the museum guide identifies Richard Hunt&#039;s Salmon mask from 1999, George Hunt Jr.&#039;s Mosquito mask from 1993, and Beau Dick&#039;s Eagle helmet from 1987 among the works in the collection.</p><p><br /></p><p>So your instinct that this was the most interesting room was pretty well justified. There is considerably more going on in there than a display of unidentified &quot;NWC masks.&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>Here is my source, directly from the Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University. It&#039;s their own illustrated/object guide to the Hoyt Collection and includes the artist biographies, object titles, dates, materials and explanations:</p><p><br /></p><p>Hallie Ford Museum of Art – George and Colleen Hoyt Collection of Northwest Coast Art:</p><p><a href="https://hfma.willamette.edu/exhibitions/library/2022-23/transformations-gallery/hoyt-collection.pdf" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://hfma.willamette.edu/exhibitions/library/2022-23/transformations-gallery/hoyt-collection.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://hfma.willamette.edu/exhibitions/library/2022-23/transformations-gallery/hoyt-collection.pdf</a></p><p><br /></p><p>Definitely worth saving that PDF if you enjoyed the exhibit. It tells you exactly what you were looking at rather than leaving you to guess from the gallery labels.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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