Bill Holm

Bill Holm at a presentation of the echo mask dance (1987)

Bill Holm (born March 24, 1925 in Roundup , Montana ) is an American art historian , who is best known for researching the culture of the native peoples of the American northwest coast. He is considered the best connoisseur of this culture since Franz Boas .

Career

After completing his bachelor's (1949) and master's (1951) degree in fine arts, Holm worked as a teacher in Seattle . From 1942 on, he and his future wife Marty began to study the north-west coast culture . He taught since 1968 as a professor at the School of Art at the University of Washington with an advanced teaching qualification in anthropology and was educational curator of the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture . His standard work Northwest Coast Indian Art, An Analysis of Form from 1965, in which he found important recurring formal elements of Indian art such as B. the ovoid analyzed and inventoried and typed with the help of edge punch cards , was published until 2012 in the 17th edition. Working as a visual artist himself, he erected several totem poles for the Burke Museum . He photographed and documented numerous Indian artifacts, restored Edward Curtis' film In the land of War Canoes and added a soundtrack with Indian chants. In 1985 he retired , but remained active in research on Northwest Coast culture.

Holm received numerous honors, including a. the Distinguished Achievement Award from the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington in 1994 and the Honor Award from the Native American Art Studies Association in 1991.

Works

• Northwest Coast Indian Art: An Analysis of Form. University of Washington Press, Seattle 1965.
• Crooked Beak of Heaven. Index of Art in the Pacific Northwest, No. 3, University of Washington Press, Seattle 1972.
• Form and Freedom: A Dialogue on Northwest Coast Indian Art (with Bill Reid ). Institute for the Arts, Rice University, Houston 1975.
• Indian Art of the Northwest Coast: A Dialogue on Craftsmanship and Aesthetics. University of Washington Press, Seattle 1976.
• Edward S. Curtis in the Land of the War Canoes: A Pioneer Cinematographer in the Pacific Northwest (with George I. Quimby). University of Washington Press, Seattle 1980.
• Soft Gold: The Fur Trade and Cultural Exchange on the Northwest Coast of America (with Thomas Vaughan). Oregon Historical Society, Portland 1982.
• Smoky top : The Art and Times of Willie Seaweed. University of Washington Press, Seattle 1983.
• The Box of Daylight: Northwest Coast Indian Art. Seattle Art Museum and University of Washington Press, Seattle 1983.
• Spirit and Ancestor: A Century of Northwest Coast Art in the Burke Museum. University of Washington Press 1987
• Sundogs and Eagle Down: The Indian Paintings of Bill Holm , ed. by Stephen C. Brown and Lloyd J. Averill. University of Washington Press 2000.

swell

• Macnair, Peter L., Alan L. Hoover, Kevin Neary, The Legacy: Tradition and Innovation in Northwest Coast Indian Art , Vancouver, BC: Douglas & McIntyre 1984
• University of Washington website

Individual evidence

1. ^ A Man from Roundup: The Life and Times of Bill Holm. Retrieved October 22, 2018 .