Board

Item number DC5.3 from the MOA: University of British Columbia.

Public

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Data
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Description

Painted replica board in red and black; reconstruction of image from a Tsimshian house screen board in the MOA collection.

Narrative

Painted by Lyle Wilson in 1989 (museum commission), based on the design found on a Tsimshian house board dated c. 1800-1840. This board replicates a small portion of a large painted house screen that, in the mid-1800s, fronted a lineage house at Lax Kw’alaams, a Tsimshian village on the northern BC coast. Decades after the house boards entered the museum collection, it was discovered that light raked across the surface of the boards, combined with high-contrast photography, revealed an elegant painting at least two hundred years old. This painting is one of several contemporary reproductions based on the old house screen boards. (See Nb7.342 for a complete reconstruction of the whole painted house front.)