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    Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: ELI TAIT (1872-1949) TSIMSHIAN, METLAKATLA, ALASKA, Model Totem Pole, c. 1920s or 1930s
    Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: ELI TAIT (1872-1949) TSIMSHIAN, METLAKATLA, ALASKA, Model Totem Pole, c. 1920s or 1930s
    Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: ELI TAIT (1872-1949) TSIMSHIAN, METLAKATLA, ALASKA, Model Totem Pole, c. 1920s or 1930s
    Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: ELI TAIT (1872-1949) TSIMSHIAN, METLAKATLA, ALASKA, Model Totem Pole, c. 1920s or 1930s
    Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: ELI TAIT (1872-1949) TSIMSHIAN, METLAKATLA, ALASKA, Model Totem Pole, c. 1920s or 1930s

    ELI TAIT (1872-1949) TSIMSHIAN, METLAKATLA, ALASKA

    Model Totem Pole, c. 1920s or 1930s
    carved and painted wood, 7.5 x 2.75 x 2 in (19.1 x 7 x 5.1 cm)
    unsigned.

    LOT 99
    ESTIMATE: $1,200 — $1,800
    PRICE REALIZED: $1,440.00

    Further images

    • (View a larger image of thumbnail 1 ) TUMIRA ASHOONA (1943-) KINNGAIT (CAPE DORSET), Inukshoo, 1964 (1964/5 #81)
    • (View a larger image of thumbnail 2 ) TUMIRA ASHOONA (1943-) KINNGAIT (CAPE DORSET), Inukshoo, 1964 (1964/5 #81)
    • (View a larger image of thumbnail 3 ) TUMIRA ASHOONA (1943-) KINNGAIT (CAPE DORSET), Inukshoo, 1964 (1964/5 #81)
    • (View a larger image of thumbnail 4 ) TUMIRA ASHOONA (1943-) KINNGAIT (CAPE DORSET), Inukshoo, 1964 (1964/5 #81)
    • (View a larger image of thumbnail 5 ) TUMIRA ASHOONA (1943-) KINNGAIT (CAPE DORSET), Inukshoo, 1964 (1964/5 #81)
    • Model Totem Pole
    Eli Tate was one of the most important Tsimshian artists making model totem poles in what Michael Hall and Pat Glascock have termed the “Dynamic Phase” (1910-1940) of model totem...
    Read more

    Eli Tate was one of the most important Tsimshian artists making model totem poles in what Michael Hall and Pat Glascock have termed the “Dynamic Phase” (1910-1940) of model totem production. See the small section on the artist in their book, Carvings and Commerce: Model Totem Poles 1880-2010, (Saskatoon: Mendel Art Gallery / Seattle: Univ. of Washington Press, 2011), pp. 96-98 for examples of his work and a photo of Tait at his workbench. The photo clearly shows that Eli Tait was a busy artist! This Model Totem Pole is almost identical to one by Tait in the book (p. 98, cat. 60). These delightful small poles are both models of the Chief Johnson pole in Ketchikan, Alaska, which was raised at a potlatch in 1901.


    References: See the section on the artist in Michael D. Hall and Pat Glascock, Carvings and Commerce: Model Totem Poles 1880-2010, (Saskatoon: Mendel Art Gallery / Seattle: Univ. of Washington Press, 2011), pp. 96-98, with an almost identical pole illustrated on p. 98. See also Jack Davy, “The ‘Idiot Sticks’: Kwakwaka'wakw Carving and Cultural Resistance in Commercial Art Production on the Northwest Coast,” American Indian Culture and Research Journal, (42:3), 2018, p. 27–46. For a model totem with a similar flat bird motif, see First Arts Online Auction, October 2021, Lot 42.
    Close full details

    Provenance

    Private Collection, Toronto. 
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FIRST ARTS PREMIERS INC.  
Nadine Di Monte   |    647-286-5012   |    info@firstarts.ca 

Ingo Hessel  |    613-818-2100   |    ingo@firstarts.ca

The main office of First Arts Premiers Inc. is located on the ancestral and traditional territories of the Mississaugas of the Credit, Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee, and Huron-Wendat, the original owners and custodians of this land.  Today, it is home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples.

 

 

 

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