How Ceremonial Masks from Canada Influenced European Surrealist Art

This is the fascinating but sordid story of how museums and collectors around the world hungered for (and often stole) ceremonial masks carved by indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest. The masks were especially prized by surrealist artists, who obsessed over the carvings used in First Nations ceremonies.

Indigenous masks from B.C. and Alaska influenced the work and world view of some of the most well-known modern artists and writers. In the 1930s and ’40s, European Surrealists were obsessed with masks from the northwest coast of North America, many of which had been stolen, seized by the government or sold by people who didn’t have the right to sell them – National Gallery of Canada

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You may already have read about the heralded exhibition Women Carvers on the Northwest Coast, carried earlier this year on Canadian Art Junkie (here) and now showing at the National Gallery of Canada. The Ottawa exhibition is showing So Surreal: Behind the Masks, by Cree filmmaker Neil Diamond – investigating how the pieces ended up in the hands of some of history’s greatest artists, influencing the work of Max Ernst, André Breton, Joan Miró and others.  

Here is the trailer for that film, documenting Diamond’s quest for a Raven Transformation Mask that has defied attempts to track it down. The story explores the connection between Surrealist art and Kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw and Yupik ceremonial masks, many of them still missing.

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The full documentary runs 1 hour and 28 minutes, available to view on YouTube.com below:

The film is also available on Apple TV (here)

A feature on the film, here.

More about ceremonial masks (previous stories on The Art Junkie), here.

NOTE: The poster for the film was designed by  Sonny Assu, a contemporary Indigenous artist known for integrating Northwest Coast iconography with Western art principles.