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Tony Hunt Sr. (24 August 1942 – 15 December 2017) was a Canadian First Nations artist noted for his KwaGulth style paintings and
''Gapers Block,'' 29 July 2006, accessed 19 May 2015 It was installed at the waterfront of Lake Michigan. After decades in the public park, the pole had suffered weather deterioration and vandalism. With new appreciation for its historic and cultural value, the original pole was sent to the museum in British Columbia for preservation and study. ''Kwanusila'' is installed at the lakeside park.
Chief Tony Hunt (Nakapnkim)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hunt, Tony 1942 births 2017 deaths 20th-century Canadian sculptors 21st-century Canadian sculptors 21st-century Canadian male artists 20th-century First Nations sculptors Canadian male sculptors 20th-century Canadian male artists 21st-century First Nations people Artists from British Columbia Kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw woodcarvers Members of the Order of British Columbia People from Alert Bay Totem pole carvers Members of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts
Tony Hunt Sr. (24 August 1942 – 15 December 2017) was a Canadian First Nations artist noted for his KwaGulth style paintings and totem poles
Totem poles ( hai, gyáaʼaang) are monumental carvings found in western Canada and the northwestern United States. They are a type of Northwest Coast art, consisting of poles, posts or pillars, carved with symbols or figures. They are usually m ...
, which he carved from single cedar
Cedar may refer to:
Trees and plants
*''Cedrus'', common English name cedar, an Old-World genus of coniferous trees in the plant family Pinaceae
*Cedar (plant), a list of trees and plants known as cedar
Places United States
* Cedar, Arizona
* ...
logs.
Early life
Tony Hunt was born in 1942 at the Kwakwaka'wakw community ofAlert Bay
Alert Bay is a village on Cormorant Island, near the town of Port McNeill on northeast Vancouver Island, in the Regional District of Mount Waddington, British Columbia, Canada.
Demographics
In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statis ...
, British Columbia
British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...
, and was the oldest of six sons of Henry Hunt and Helen Hunt. The youth received early training from his maternal grandfather Mungo Martin
Chief Mungo Martin or ''Nakapenkem'' (lit. ''Potlatch chief "ten times over"''), ''Datsa'' (lit. ''"grandfather"''), was an important figure in Northwest Coast style art, specifically that of the Kwakwaka'wakw Aboriginal people who live in the a ...
. Through his maternal line, Hunt was a hereditary chief of the Kwakwaka'wakw.
His father was a professional woodcarver. Hunt and his brothers are also descendants of the renowned ethnologist George Hunt (Tlingit
The Tlingit ( or ; also spelled Tlinkit) are indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. Their language is the Tlingit language (natively , pronounced ),
), who collected hundreds of Kwakwaka'wakw artworks for an exhibition at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition
The World's Columbian Exposition (also known as the Chicago World's Fair) was a world's fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. The centerpiece of the Fair, hel ...
in Chicago.
Career
After his grandfather Martin's death in 1962, Hunt became assistant carver to his father Henry Hunt at Thunderbird Park in Victoria, B.C. His younger brothers, Richard Hunt and Stanley C. Hunt, also became professional carvers. In 1970 Hunt opened the Arts of the Raven Gallery in Victoria. In 1984Kraft Foods, Inc.
The second incarnation of Kraft Foods is an American food manufacturing and processing conglomerate, split from Kraft Foods Inc. in 2012 and headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. It became part of Kraft Heinz in 2015.
A merger with Heinz, arra ...
commissioned Tony Hunt to carve a replacement totem pole, '' Kwanusila'' (Thunderbird
Thunderbird, thunder bird or thunderbirds may refer to:
* Thunderbird (mythology), a legendary creature in certain North American indigenous peoples' history and culture
* Ford Thunderbird, a car
Birds
* Dromornithidae, extinct flightless birds ...
), for a Kwakwaka'wakw pole donated by James L. Kraft, industrialist, to the city of Chicago in 1929.Alice Maggio, "Lakefront Totem Pole Contains Many Tales"''Gapers Block,'' 29 July 2006, accessed 19 May 2015 It was installed at the waterfront of Lake Michigan. After decades in the public park, the pole had suffered weather deterioration and vandalism. With new appreciation for its historic and cultural value, the original pole was sent to the museum in British Columbia for preservation and study. ''Kwanusila'' is installed at the lakeside park.
Death
Chief Tony Hunt died in Campbell River on 15 December 2017.Honors
Hunt was awarded theOrder of British Columbia
The Order of British Columbia (french: Ordre de la Colombie-Britannique) is a civilian honour for merit in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Instituted in 1989 by Lieutenant Governor David Lam, on the advice of the Cabinet under Premier ...
in 2010.
Sources
* Hunt, Ross (2007) "The Hunt Family's Trip to West Germany to Attend the Bundesgarten Show." ''Anthropology News,'' vol. 48, no. 2, pp. 20–21. * Macnair, Peter L., Alan L. Hoover, and Kevin Neary (1984) ''The Legacy: Tradition and Innovation in Northwest Coast Indian Art.'' Vancouver, B.C.: Douglas & McIntyre.References
External links
Chief Tony Hunt (Nakapnkim)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hunt, Tony 1942 births 2017 deaths 20th-century Canadian sculptors 21st-century Canadian sculptors 21st-century Canadian male artists 20th-century First Nations sculptors Canadian male sculptors 20th-century Canadian male artists 21st-century First Nations people Artists from British Columbia Kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw woodcarvers Members of the Order of British Columbia People from Alert Bay Totem pole carvers Members of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts