Interpreting a Nuu-chah-nulth Carved Pole

Nuu-chah-nulth historian, artist, and scholar Haa’yuups reflects on a remarkable carved pole dating to the late nineteenth century in Montclair Art Museum's collection. This carving once belonged to a Nuu-chah-nulth family on Vancouver Island on Canada’s west coast.

This work is featured in the exhibition Family, Community, Belonging: Works from the Collection on view from February 9, 2024–January 11, 2026.

Montclair Art Museum was founded in 1914 as a public art institution with a significant collection of both historical and contemporary Native work from across North America. The collection remains one of the foremost and dynamic collections of Native art in the Northeast, with new works added regularly.

MAM’s founding collection of Indigenous art was organized by three women in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: Museum co-founder Florence Rand Lang and her mother Annie Valentine Rand, chiefly through Pasadena-based dealer Grace Nicholson. The Museum has continued to collect the work of contemporary Native artists throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and exhibitions have integrated works from our two collections since 1995. Today, the range of Indigenous art and cultural objects at MAM comprises more than 4,000 pieces: one-third of the Museum’s total collection.

For more information on our collection at MAM please visit us at,
https://www.montclairartmuseum.org/art

And to plan your trip please visit,
https://www.montclairartmuseum.org/vi...