Augustus Bean was a Sitka, Alaska, based Tlingit artist and the brother-in-law of Rudolph Walton (1867-1951). Like Walton, Bean made pieces for sale and community use and was best-known for his heavily inlaid figural feast dishes. While superficially similar to Walton’s work, Bean’s dishes tend to be more gracile and elegant in their execution. The attribution of this carving is based on a Land Otter Man bowl identified as the work of Bean by Erna Gunther in the Alaska State Museum [1]. That bowl features the same squarish ovoids and long, rectangular bone inlays as this Devilfish Bowl. This complex bowl is composed of two devilfishes facing one another and features approximately 150 inlays of bone, abalone, and seed beads. Their mantles are decorated with crosshatching and split-u forms, while their tentacles are defined by cutouts from the main body and are adorned with crosshatching and bone and bead inlays.

1. For a discussion of Augustus Bean’s style, please see Zachary Jones’ 2018 doctoral dissertation, "Haa Léelk'w Hás Ji.Eetí, our Grandparents' Art: A Study of Master Tlingit Artists, 1750-1989." There is an image of the Land Otter Man bowl on page 133 (Figure 120, Alaska State Museum II-B-1746).

Christopher W. Smith