Benjamin “Beau” Dick is one of Canada’s most important artists of the last century. A Kwakwaka’wakw carver, culture bearer, activist, dancer, and musician, Beau seamlessly blended these aspects of his life into an artistic practice that welcomed in, but also challenged, the Canadian public. Throughout his life, Beau mastered several regional styles of Northwest Coast art as well as different styles from across time. Many of his pieces, particularly his later masks, were grand monuments that played with scale and brought to life the supernatural beings of the Kwakwaka’wakw universe. This is an earlier mask by Dick that depicts an elderly woman with long white hair, her face totally covered with wrinkles that underscore her age and wisdom. Like most of Dick’s masks, though, there is a flourish of humour in the expression of this kind-looking woman’s face, with her open mouth, protruding tongue, and missing tooth. Masks depicting the elderly, such as this one, were a popular exercise for both advanced and beginner carvers in the 1970s and 1980s to develop their skills in realism and portraiture.

Christopher W. Smith

References: For a compositionally similar work, see Komunokas (Rich Woman), 1992 in LaTiesha Fazakas, et. al., Beau Dick: Devoured by Consumerism (Vancouver: Figure 1 Publishing, 2019), p. 49. For another study of the artist see Darrin J. Martens, Beau Dick: Revolutionary Spirit (Vancouver: Figure 1 Publishing / Whistler: Audain Art Museum, 2018).