Sold for: $31,250

PROVENANCE
Estate of Mary and Harry Klonoff, Vancouver

Along with just a small handful of other artists, Freda Diesing (1925-2002) was responsible for the re-awakening of Northwest Coast art and culture in the 1960s. This era saw the production of genre-defining works that set the template that contemporary artists still follow.

Dieseing was a female artist in what was a man's world of wood carving and was one of the first women to gain acclaim as a Northwest Coast artist. The influence of colonial missionaries led to carving being considered men's art form, displacing the traditional carving roles which were shared by women. Diesing defied these norms and set the stage for today's female artists to reestablish an increasingly balanced representation of men and women in First Nations artists.

This lot, executed about ten years into Freda Diesing's artistic career, is a defining example of her take on the human face. Diesing worked with many mediums, but it was her portrait-masks where she excelled. Trained in traditional carving techniques, her works are classical yet have a modern feel to them. Hand-carved and crisply painted, an Orca motif with a large red dorsal fin sprouts from the brows, the black and red paint contrasting against the warm tones of the stained alder wood. This unfolding of the features in ways that straddle both realism and stylization is characteristic of Diesing's signature style and emblematic of the art of the Northwest Coast.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars

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