Yale Bulletin and Calendar

April 25, 2003|Volume 31, Number 27

James Swan documented a drawing by a Native American artist in this work, "Thunder Bird of the Makahs from the Tamanous board in the house of the late Yellicom or Flattery Jack," dated Nov. 29, 1859.

Works by 'Cha-tic' offer detailed
view of Native American life

Drawings and paintings by a 19th-century white man who lived for many years among the Native Americans of the Northwest Coast will be featured in a new exhibition on view April 28-July 19 at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

The artist, James Gilchrist Swan (1818-1900) was given the name "Cha-tic," or "the painter," by the Makah Indians of Cape Flattery, among whom he spent many years.

The Beinecke show, titled "James Swan, Cha-tic of the Northwest Coast: Paintings and Drawings from the Franz & Kathryn Stenzel Collection," features over 100 drawings and paintings -- most of them made by Swan, others commissioned by him from Native American artists of the Northwest Coast.

Swan led an eventful life as (among other occupations) lawyer, traveler, ethnographer, entrepreneur, judge, teacher, journalist, oysterman, diarist, artist and author.

In 1850, he left Medford, Massachusetts, for California. The pictorial record of his experiences in the West begins two years later when he moved from San Francisco to Shoalwater Bay, north of the mouth of the Columbia River. While botanical subjects dominate Swan's earliest surviving work, his interest in Native American culture was present from the beginning. He learned Native languages and moved easily in Indian communities, and his writings reveal a sensitivity to the variety and particularity of Indian communities and the stresses to which they were subject.

In the fall of 1858, Swan moved to Port Townsend, at the head of Puget Sound, with the intent of establishing a nautical outfitting business. But his interests in Indian culture prevailed, and he spent much time with a local Indian leader, Chetzamoka. Under Chetzamoka's tutelage, Swan witnessed and sketched portions of a Chemakum "tomanawos" ceremony, a rite designed to harness the power of guardian spirits, as well as the festive "potlatch" which followed the ceremony. In the fall of 1859, Swan began an extended visit among the Makah Indians at Neah Bay.

Swan's study of Indian cultures continued under the aegis of the Smithsonian Institution, for which he collected artifacts, and the Indian Office, for which he worked as a teacher and census-taker. He received a commission to collect artifacts for the Centennial Exposition of 1876, which he used to finance a trip to coastal British Columbia and Alaska. In 1883, a similar commission to collect for an international fisheries exhibition supported his voyage to the Queen Charlotte Islands off the coast of British Columbia.

The works by Swan in the Beinecke exhibition range from botanical subjects -- delicate renderings of the sweet pea, water lily and trillium, for instance -- to landscapes and depictions of Anglo-American and Native American villages along the Northwest Coast. The latter include intricately detailed drawings of Indian artifacts, carved columns and tattoos, as well as scenes of Indian villages and ceremonies.

In contrast, the 11 drawings in the exhibition by the Haida artist Johnny Kit Elswa are bold, stylized paintings of mythological figures, such as Hooyeh the Raven, the trickster and shape-shifter of Haida lore. Elswa, noted as a carver and maker of jewelry, was among the first Haida artists to work in pen and watercolor on paper.

The materials in the Beinecke exhibition are part of the Franz & Kathryn Stenzel Collection, donated to the Yale Collection of Western Americana in 1997 by the collectors, residents of Portland, Oregon. The Swan materials (manuscripts and letters as well as art work) constitute a subset of the Stenzel Collection, which includes 1,300 art works, ranging from oil paintings and watercolors to engravings and photographs, as well as research files, all of which document the history and culture of the Pacific Northwest.

"In their passionate pursuit of Northwestern art," says George Miles, curator of the Yale Collection of Western Americana, "the Stenzels crafted a legacy that will enable generations of students and scholars to investigate the history of the Pacific Northwest and consider the role of the visual arts in American culture." The Swan drawings were last exhibited in 1959 at the Portland Art Museum in Oregon.

Miles, who arranged the exhibition, will present a lecture titled "Trading Pictures: James Swan, Johnny Kit Elswa, and the Art of the Northwest Coast" at 5:15 p.m. on Friday, May 2, in the Law School's Levinson Auditorium, 127 Wall St. The lecture will be followed by a reception at the Beinecke Library and an opportunity to view the James Swan exhibition. The lecture and reception are free and open to the public. An illustrated catalog of the exhibition will be on sale at the library.

The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, located at 121 Wall St., is open for exhibition viewing 8:30 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday-Thursday; 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday; and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday. Admission is free.

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