Alaska Art History Alaska Art History other online information

Alaska Art History

with an emphasis on representational art

Other online information

Alaska (painters) from AskArt.com. Accessed July, 2015.

Alaskan Art and the Sense of Wonder from PBS has an article by Kesler Woodward. He says: "A look at Alaskan paintings across that century and a half reveals the ability of artists to evoke that sense of wonder, and the capacity of this place to inspire it, but it also makes clear what a dangerous double-edged sword the sense of wonder can be, and how it can rob Alaskan art of the very magic that it initially inspires. " Accessed January, 2025.

The Alaskan Four, a compilation by us in January, 2025

Alaska Artists: Kesler Woodward is an article featured in Alaskan Nature. It says: "Woodward began painting in 1971 with an abstract piece entitled "Fire," and expanded to representational paintings, eventually fusing the two painting genres to create the unique style manifested in his current work. He describes his finest paintings as those that extend beyond depiction of the landscape itself and capture the sense of wonder conjured by presence in the environment. "I have been using more subjective colors and building up a more active, complex surface to try to achieve a sense of how I 'felt,' being in a certain place, more than just how that place 'looked.'" Woodward's experimentation with integrating complex colors often stems from a laborious artistic process. "I spend weeks, sometimes, applying, scraping away, modifying, and building up other colors over that image, changing it and responding to it." The resulting kaleidoscope of color infused in each piece is one of a kind." Accessed January, 2025

Capturing Alaska: Who Are 6 of Alaska's Most Celebrated Painters? is an article by Ivy Bowler published in The Collector. She says: "These six artists brought to life the people and landscapes of Alaska in their oil and watercolor paintings." Accessed 1/25

Cook Inlet Historical Society (CIHS) published the biography Sydney Laurence, 1865-1940 | Artist, Photographer, and Prospector which says: "After his death, Sydney Laurence became internationally famous as "the foremost painter of Alaskan scenes" during the first three decades of the twentieth century. He painted Alaskan landscapes of "romantic and unspoiled Alaska" on such subjects as Mount McKinley (now Denali), rustic cabins and caches, oceans crashing on rocky coasts, and other dramatic scenes. He made his home in Anchorage for twenty-five years from 1915 to 1940. Laurence is best known for his paintings of Mount McKinley in many moods. In Anchorage, examples of his work are on public display at the Anchorage Museum; Wells Fargo Bank's Alaska Heritage Museum and Library; and at Z.J. Loussac Library, Anchorage Public Library." Accessed 1/25

Dear Listener: Works by Nicholas Galanin is a 2018 exhibit at the Heard Museum which says: "The exhibition will explore themes of Indigeneity, the porosity of identity in both Indigenous and American contexts, and reciprocal dialogues therein. Works will inspect the notions of landscape, colonialism, and redress the rampant misappropriation of American Indian aesthetics and visual culture by non-Native individuals, and highlight the artists nimbleness in the reclamation of Indigenous agency." Accessed 7/18

On Arctic Ice: Fred Machetanz is a 2010 exhibit at the Frye Art Museum which says: "Working in the isolated wilderness, Fred Machetanz (1908-2002) produced a body of work that encapsulates the snowcapped mountains and brilliant light of Alaska. On Arctic Ice: Fred Machetanz showcases a selection of stone lithographs produced between 1946 and 1980 that depict the flora, fauna, and people of America's northernmost state." Accessed 3/17

This Is Not A Silent Movie: Four Contemporary Alaska Native Artists is a 2013 exhibit at the Craft and Folk Art Museum which says: "Through the language of contemporary visual art, Sonya Kelliher-Combs, Susie Silook, Da-ka-xeen Mehner, and Nicholas Galanin seek new and distinct ways to speak of tradition and mediate the serious and sometimes ironic conditions of art, identity, and history in the late 20th and early 21st century. Though each artist's work is rooted in a lifelong immersion in their respective Alaska Native craft traditions, their multi-media contemporary installations dissolve the boundaries between contemporary and traditional arts." Accessed 2/17

(above: Unknown artist, Walrus tusk engraved with cribbage board and pictures of whale hunting scene, ivory, 19th century. 22 3/4 x 3/4 x 1 1/2 inches. Private Collection. Tusk is shown on a mid-twentieth century Navajo blanket)

(above: Unknown artist, Verso, Walrus tusk engraved with cribbage board and pictures of whale hunting scene, ivory, 19th century. 22 3/4 x 3/4 x 1 1/2 inches. Private Collection. Tusk is shown on a mid-twentieth century Navajo blanket)

(above: Unknown artist, Side view, Walrus tusk engraved with cribbage board and pictures of whale hunting scene, ivory, 19th century. 22 3/4 x 3/4 x 1 1/2 inches. Private Collection. Tusk is shown on a mid-twentieth century Navajo blanket)

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