Three Northwest Coast art books are finalists for this year’s B.C. and Yukon Book Prizes.
Echoes of the Supernatural: The Graphic Art of Robert Davidson is among the five finalists for the Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award, awarded to the book deemed most successful for its public appeal, as well as its design and content.
Written by Gary Wyatt with Davidson, a Haida artist, it was published in conjunction with an exhibition of Davidson’s graphic work that just closed at the Vancouver Art Gallery.
Dempsey Bob: In His Own Voice, written by Dempsey Bob, working with editor Sarah Milroy, chief curator of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, near Toronto, is a finalist for the Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize.
Bob, of Tahltan and Tlingit descent, is a carver whose exhibition, Wolves: The Art of Dempsey Bob, is touring Canada.
Knowledge Within: Treasures of the Northwest Coast, by Pam Brown, Jisgang Nika Collison, Anthony Alan Shelton and Jodi Simkin, with editor Caitlin Gordon-Walker, is also a finalist for the Roderick Haig-Brown prize. The book offers a tour of collections of Indigenous art at 17 West Coast institutions, both settler and Indigenous.
The Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize is awarded to a book that contributes to understandings of B.C. or Yukon.
All three books were produced by Figure 1 Publishing, working in collaboration with institutional partners.
Winners are expected to be announced in the fall.
Source: B.C. and Yukon Book Prizes