Bill Holm

1925-2020

Born in Roundup, Montana in 1925, Bill Holm began his lifelong involvement with Native American art and culture playing on the sandstone bluffs in the Musselshell valley. After moving to Seattle as a teenager, his interests broadened to include the cultures of the Northwest Coast. Following Army service in the Second World War, he entered the University of Washington, earning a Bachelor’s degree and Master of Fine Arts degree in painting. After teaching art in the Seattle Public Schools for fifteen years, Bill published his first book. Northwest Coast Indian Art: an Analysis of Form (now in its thirteenth printing) led to appointments in the Burke Museum as Curator of Northwest Coast Indian Art and in the Art History Division of the School of Art at the University of Washington. It sold nearly over 100,000 copies and transformed the art world.

Bill retired in 1985 after 17 years as a curator and professor. For thirty-two years he had focused on teaching, research and field work among Northwest Coast people. Following his retirement he began a series of paintings, mostly in acrylic, of the Native people of the Plains, Plateau, and Northwest Coast – the areas of his professional expertise. He had always been interested in the materials and technology of Northwest Native cultures, making nearly every kind of object, form full size plank houses, canoes, and totem poles to bead and porcupine quill decorated clothing of the Plains and Plateau. He published eight books and many articles on Native Northwest arts and cultures and lectured widely in North America and Europe. He had also served as a consultant on Northwest Coast art for many of the world’s major museums.

Bill Holm will be missed by many, especially the Stonington Gallery Team.