Denny Dixon (B 1944) First Nations, Haida Argillite Totem. Depicts a raven atop a bear holding a small human. Signed and dated 10/03 on back. 

Size: 2 1/2 X 2 X 6 1/4 in. 

#7107 . 

Denny Dixon was born in 1944 in the Haida Gwaii town of Skidegate on Graham Island, British Columbia, Canada. The Haida are an indigenous group who have occupied the archipelago for approximately 12,500 years, with their oral tradition cataloging the receding of the glaciers and the arrival of red cedars on the island in the pre-Neolithic period. After being forcibly annexed by the British through gunboat diplomacy in the mid 19th Century, the tribe finally received autonomy and control of more than 200 islands off Canada’s west coast in April of 2024. Denny’s grandfather was John Cross (1867-1939), the chief of the Eagle clan and renowned for bringing international awareness to the tribe through his own art. Cross carved with black argillite, a rare type of the hard silt rock that is only found in the Slatechuck Mountain near Skidegate. His patterns on poles, jewelry, and plates came from his earlier education in the making of tattoos, and he gathered sixteen Haida artists together to work on a set of 29 model houses that were commissioned for the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. Argillite became so popular that it was heavily mined and shipped to Victoria, where artisans created works for royalty and wealthy patrons, primarily in Europe. Denny grew up in Port Alberni and Prince Rupert, disconnected from his cultural heritage. When he moved to Vancouver in 1969 to live with his older brother Pat, he was introduced to argillite and the work of his ancestors. He began to work exclusively in argillite, returning to Skidegate and becoming known as the most skilled craftsman in the material.  In the 1990s he was invited to work at the Montreal Museum, where he presented one of his argillite boxes to the visiting Empress Shōda Michiko of Japan. Today his work can be found in private collections around the world, as well as in multiple museums in the Pacific Northwest, and the Haida people have a monopoly on the argillite thanks to efforts to reclaim control of their resources starting in the 1960s and the activism of artists like Dixon.

Minor nicks and scratches.