Thomas J. Watson Library 

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Native Art of the Northwest Coast

Docent Research Guide

Listed below are resources to aid museum docents who will be assisting with the “Native Art of the Northwest Coast” exhibit.

• WATSONLINE

WATSONLINE is the online catalogue of the libraries of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Below is a small selection of books and past exhibition catalogues that may be helpful.

• Handbook of North American Indians edited by William C. Sturtevant
• Please refer to Volume 7 for the Northwest Coast. 
• This is a general guidebook to get you started. It provides background information on the native peoples of the Northwest Coastal environment, their languages, and early history. Also contains sections on mythology and art.

• Native Art of the Northwest Coast: A History of Changing Ideas edited by Charlotte Townsend-Gault, Jennifer Kramer, and Ḳi-ḳe-in
• A survey of the history of ideas and arguments that have shaped and disputed Northwest Coast Native art for more than 250 years. Contributors include leading Indigenous and non-Indigenous historians, art historians, anthropologists, legal experts, artists, and holders of traditional Indigenous knowledge.

• Art of the Northwest Coast by Aldona Jonaitis
• A comprehensive survey of the Native arts of the Pacific Northwest Coast, from Puget Sound to Alaska. Incorporating the region’s social history with the observations of anthropologists, historians of art, and Native peoples, this book examines how the upheavals of European contact affected the development of a powerful traditional art.

• Bill Holm is the Professor Emeritus of Art History, and Curator Emeritus of Northwest Coast Indian Art at the Burke Museum, he is recognized internationally as one of the most knowledgeable experts in the field of Northwest Coast Native art history.His eight books have won scholarly acclaim and recognition with four Washington State Governor's Writers Awards, and two special Governor's awards. The link will lead you to the call number information for his works that we have in the catalogue. We do also have interlibrary loan available to get access to the works that we don't. His most influential work is listed below. 
• Northwest Coast Indian Art: Analysis of Form has sold over 100,000 copies and is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. Bill Holm was able to describe this type of artwork using new terminology that has become part of the established vocabulary and is still used when discussing Native Northwest art work.
• Exhibition catalogues
• Uncommon legacies : Native American art from the Peabody Essex Museum
• Indigenous beauty : masterworks of American Indian art from the Diker collection

• Tribal websites

Listed below are website links to the webpages for some of the tribes of the Pacific Northwest. Their sites have excellent resources and links as well as providing quick summaries of their histories which may be helpful.

• The Clatsop-Nehalem people
• The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes
• The Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe
• Nooksack Indian Tribe
• Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations
• Quinault Indian Nation

• Additional resources

• Bill Holm Center, Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture

The Bill Holm Center is one of the leading centers for the study of Northwest Coast Native art. 

• Pacific Northwest Collection at the University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections

 Archival collections and library materials relating to the history, culture, and people of the Pacific Northwest.

• The Reciprocal Research Network (RRN)

 The project is a joint effort, co-developed by Musqueam Indian Band, the Stó:lō Nation/Tribal Council, the U’mista Cultural Society and the Museum of Anthropology at UBC.The network now has 26 participating institutions, 502,802 items, 305,288 photographs, and over 1400 projects.

• Classes for museum volunteers

Classes are occasionally offered to aid museum volunteers in their research. I would recommend checking the calendar to view upcoming classes, some of the most recent classes offered were:

• Breadth, Depth and Easy Access:  Encyclopedias from the Timeline of Art History to Oxford Art Online—Researching background, contextual and biographical information can be great ways to improve your knowledge of the Museum and its collections.  Oxford Art Online and the Met’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History are essential resources for finding contextual information on Museum objects as well as topics in art history. Instructors will highlight the benefits of each and demonstrate searches.
• Advanced Search Techniques in JSTOR and Art Source—Journals, periodicals, magazines and newspapers can provide a wealth of information for researchers.  In this interactive lecture-style class, you will learn how to search JSTOR and Art Source more effectively.  Volunteers signing up for this class should have a basic understanding of how to access and navigate JSTOR.