Jack Shadbolt and the Coastal Indian Image

Jack Shadbolt was inspired in his formative years by his contact withEmily Carr and with her brooding works portraying the remnants ofIndian villages against the overwhelming wilderness. He made sketchesof Indian artefacts and the Cowichan Reserve in the 1930s, but it wasonly after World War II that elements of Indian art began to show up inhis style. Marjorie Halpin finds in the changes in the way Indian formsoccur in Shadbolt's paintings an appropriate expression of thechanging attitudes of British Columbians to Native society and thepolitical will the Native people now manifest. The place of Indianmotifs in Shadbolt's painting can be broadly correlated with thecultural quickening of Indian society in recent years. They reveal hisemotional sympathy with Kwagiutl, Haida, and Tlingit forms and his deepresponse to the Indians' spiritual and historic presence in theBritish Columbia environment.