Totem Poles, Gitsegukla

Framing Gallery, Toronto, 1965 Private Collection

“Edwin Holgate”, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts; traveling to Glenbow Museum, Calgary; McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa and Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, 26 May 2005–15 April 2007, no. 53

Sandra Dyck, “‘A New Country for Canadian Art’: Edwin Holgate and Marius Barbeau in Gitxsan Territory,” in Rosalind Pepall and Brian Foss, “Edwin Holgate”, Montreal, 2005, reproduced page 56

In the late summer and early autumn of 1926, Edwin Holgate and A.Y. Jackson accompanied anthropologist Marius Barbeau to Gitxsan territory on British Columbia’s upper Skeena River. That territory included the small community of Gitsegukla, where Emily Carr had worked in 1912 (”Totem Poles, Kitseukla”, Vancouver Art Gallery). The village had also attracted the attention of the federally funded Totem Pole Preservation Committee, which proposed to restore Gitsegukla’s nineteen poles and move them closer to the existing railroad tracks to enhance their tourism value. Holgate and Jackson spent six weeks traversing the territory. During that time, and in the coming months, Holgate produced several portrait and figure drawings, oil sketches, wood engravings, and at least two canvases: “Indian Grave Houses” (1926, private collection) and “Totem Poles, Gitsegukla” (1927, National Gallery of Canada). Thirteen of these pieces, among them the 1927 canvas, were included in the major exhibition “Canadian West Coast Art, Native and Modern”, at the National Gallery in December 1927. The five poles as depicted in the drawing “Totem Poles, Gitsegukla” show little wear from age and weather, compared to the more physically degraded poles seen in period photographs. In this and other respects the drawing and the canvas are closely similar, especially as both employ taut compositions that position the poles’ five towering verticals and one dramatic horizontal to frame the middle‒ground buildings and lone female figure. There are also differences, however, and these are key to understanding Holgate’s working method. He adjusted his initial conception so as to enhance the scene’s solemn, crepuscular atmosphere through the addition of more complex shadows and a sleeping dog. Other changes framed and focused the view more tightly. Narrow strips at the top, bottom and right‒hand side of the drawing were eliminated, increasing the intimacy of the scene. More striking is the transformation of the drawing’s single hill into a pair of forested hills extending beyond the left‒hand edge of the drawing, and the addition of a row of stark mountains. These may well include the Segukla peak, from which the name of the village was derived. The mountains and the leftward extension of the hills decisively close off the view beyond the village itself, heightening the scene’s atmosphere of silent intimacy. We extend our thanks to Brian Foss, Carleton University Professor of Art & Architectural History, and co‒curator of “1920s Modernism in Montreal: The Beaver Hall Group” for his assistance in researching this artwork and for contributing the preceding essay.