Born in Alaska, moved to British Columbia as a child, Robert Charles Davidson is an artist of Haida Indian heritage. He “has been a pivotal figure in the Northwest Coast Native art renaissance since 1969, when he erected the first totem pole in his ancestral Massett village since the 1880s. For over 40 years he has mastered Haida art traditions by studying the great works of his great-grandfather Charles Edenshaw and others. More recently, Davidson has interjected his own interpretation of the old forms with forays into abstraction, explored in boldly minimalistic easel paintings, graphic works and sculpture, where images are pared to essential lines, elemental shapes and strong colors.
The exhibition will feature 45 paintings, sculptures and prints created since 2005, as well as key images from earlier in his career that show Davidson’s evolution toward an elemental language of form.“
Robert Davidson: Abstract Impulse
Until February 16, 2014
Seattle Art Museum – SAM
1300 First Avenue, Seattle, WA