Mask c. 1850 - 1900

pigment, sculpture

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3d sculpting

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pigment

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sculpture

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united-states

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This wooden mask, created by Inupiaq artists in the late 19th century, is a striking example of Northwest Coast Indigenous art. The mask's distinctive features include a large, exaggerated mouth with a row of teeth and a rounded head with prominent ears. The mask’s simple geometric shapes and bold colors make it an important piece of Indigenous art. It is currently housed at the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

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minneapolisinstituteofart about 1 year ago

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Among the Yup’ik of the Arctic region, masks were made for ceremonial purposes, and their subjects were humans, animals, and spirits. Each mask is unique because its details are given to the carver in a dream. The masks are used for healing ceremonies or community-based dance celebrations such as the Bladder Ceremony. This mask could have elements from both a human and a bear, which may show the transformation from one being into the other. The Yup’ik, like many Native American cultures, consider bears to be part human. The ears are proportionally large because the Yup’ik believe that bears have an acute sense of hearing. In fact, they would be very careful what they said about bears because their conversation could be heard for miles and could anger the bears. Most Yup’ik masks had extensions around the perimeter of the object; these could be a large wooden circle, feathers, or both. The majority of masks in museum collections have lost these elements because of their fragility.