Together Again: Nuxalk Faces of the Sky

One of SAM’s venerable works of Northwest Coast art is the highlight of a special display which opened in December. Created around 1880, the Nuxalk sun mask—made up of a circular corona and an inset mask—will be on view with a mask from the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Joint research by curators at both museums, in consultation with Nuxalk community members, has revealed that the mask in Vancouver was the original inset for our corona and that sometime after 1920 the parts were separated and a different mask was joined with the corona. Come visit the reunion of the original pieces, on view with other compelling Nuxalk ceremonial masks from SAM’s collection.

Mask of the Moon (Tl’uk), Sinxolatla (Image of the Sun), ca. 1880, Nuxalk, red cedar, alder, paint, 42 3/4 x 42 1/8 in., Seattle Art Museum, Gift of John H. Hauberg, 91.1.95