Birth of Antiquity

Description

‘Birth of Antiquity‘ by Daphne Odjig, 1989 – First Nations Woodland Art presented by DaVic Gallery of Native Canadian Arts

Due to the significant historical value and specialized white-glove shipping requirements for this original Odjig work, we process all acquisitions via personalized consultation to ensure the highest standard of delivery and care.

Please contact us to arrange your purchase transaction of this product:  info@nativecanadianarts.com   or call us at 604-679-8392

Condition:       No condition to report.

Provenance:    This painting comes with a strong provenance from Gallery Gevik and Leona Lattimer.

Leona Lattimer was one of the leading gallerists in Vancouver, instrumental in building the Northwest Coast Indigenous art market. In 1976, she was named the manager of the Museum of Vancouver giftshop and quickly turned it into the highest-grossing giftshop in Canada. She outgrew her position at the museum by the early 1980s and opened the Leona Lattimer Gallery in 1986, just in time for Expo 86. Her gallery quickly became the prime destination in the Pacific Northwest for authentic, collectible Indigenous art.

Leona passed away on June 25th, 2022, in Vancouver, BC. Leona and her husband, David Lattimer, lived all over BC, including many small communities, where they made long-lasting friendships. Through her relationships with Indigenous artists throughout BC, she was able to help create the thriving Northwest Coast Indigenous art market we know today. The hundreds of artists and thousands of customers Leona met and worked with were her true passion and the source of many lifelong friendships she had.

Over the decades, Leona collected pieces herself, directly from the artists. These were exceptional artworks that both met her discriminating standards and spoke to her refined aesthetic taste. To own an artwork from the Leona Lattimer Collection is to own a piece of Vancouver history.

Description by Artist:     No description by the artist found.

Notes from DaVic Gallery:   Painted in 1989, ‘Birth of Antiquity’ captures Daphne Odjig at the height of her expressive powers. This work is a profound meditation on the continuity of life, heritage, and the spiritual architecture of the Potawatomi people. Often celebrated as the Matriarch of the ‘Indian Group of Seven,’ Odjig’s work in ‘Birth of Antiquity’ represents a masterful synthesis of heritage and modernism. While her contemporaries focused on raw legend, Odjig pioneered a rhythmic, cubist-influenced geometry that redefined Indigenous art on the global stage.   In this composition, we see a rhythmic assembly of figures emerging from architectural, cocoon-like structures, suggesting that our ancestors and our history are not “past,” but are constantly being reborn in the present.

• The Central Motif: The vibrant red figure at the base, cradling a smaller form within its womb-like center, serves as the grounding “Mother” of the piece, radiating a sense of protection and origin.

• The Odjig Line: Notice the commanding weight of the thick black outlines. These are the direct descendants of the “rhythmic lines” Odjig learned from her grandfather, a traditional stone carver. Just as a carver finds the spirit within the rock, Odjig uses these lines to “sculpt” her figures onto the canvas. Unlike the rigid geometry of her contemporaries, her lines here are undulating and heavy with intent, creating a structural framework that feels as permanent and grounded as ancient petroglyphs, yet as fluid as a heartbeat.

• Color Palette: The sophisticated use of cool blues and teals contrasted against the sudden, warm reds creates a visual “heartbeat.” The teals suggest the ethereal or spiritual world, while the red anchors the figures in the physical reality of blood and birth.

• The Title:  The title ‘Birth of Antiquity’ serves as a defiant modernist manifesto. It suggests that Indigenous heritage—the ‘Antiquity’ of the land—is not a static history, but a living force constantly being ‘born’ anew in the present. By framing her ancestors as emerging from structural cocoons, Odjig mirrors the way her own art gave a new, contemporary ‘Birth’ to the ancient ‘rhythmic lines’ she inherited from her stone-carver grandfather

As a founding member of the Professional Native Indian Artists Association (the “Indian Group of Seven”), Odjig’s originals are cornerstones of any serious North American collection and ‘Birth of Antiquity’ is a rare large-scale oil on canvas, offering a level of desirability usually reserved for national institutions.

Fittingly, in 1989, Daphne Odjig is elected as a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Art.

To truly understand the monumental presence and institutional scale of this rare large-format oil canvas, please refer to the final image showing ‘Birth of Antiquity’ in situ. Within a refined domestic context, you can experience how the powerful structural rhythm—inherited from Odjig’s stone-carver grandfather—transforms the room, offering a level of ‘Level’ sophistication and cultural authority usually reserved for national museums.