What Price This Pound Of Whale? And Other Unpublished Writings

Authors

J. Schoppert
Christopher T. Green , Editor, Swarthmore CollegeFollow

Document Type

Book

Publication Date

Spring 2024

Published In

What Price This Pound Of Whale? And Other Unpublished Writings

Abstract

The Tlingit artist Jim Schoppert (1947-1992) was among the most accomplished, innovative, and prolific Alaska Native artists of the twentieth century. His whimsical sculptures and large scale painted wooden carvings reconfigure Tlingit visual motifs, and he challenged the binary categories against which Indigenous artists are so often defined, such as traditional and contemporary, historic and innovative, and artist or craftsperson. While known primarily for his modernist interventions in Tlingit visual traditions, Schoppert was also a prolific writer, an eloquent speaker, and an ardent advocate for Alaska Native artists. This publication brings together a selection of his unpublished poetry and writings from the artist’s personal papers. Presented alongside never before seen sketches and studies, this selection bridges Schoppert’s written and artistic practices in a deeply personal portrait of the artist and Alaska Native life that upsets preconceptions about Native art and unsettles the established narrative of Euro-American and Indigenous aesthetic relations.

Published By

Center for the Humanities, the Graduate Center, The City University of New York

Editor(s)

Christopher T. Green

Comments

This work was edited and features a biographical notes essay by Christopher T. Green.

Recommended Citation

J. Schoppert and Christopher T. Green , Editor. (2024). "What Price This Pound Of Whale? And Other Unpublished Writings". What Price This Pound Of Whale? And Other Unpublished Writings. Volume 9, Issue 1.
https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-art-history/8