MUSEUM NEWS
56
BELOW: Henri Matisse, Esquimaude, 1949.
Charcoal on paper.
Collection of the Musée départemental Matisse, Le Cateau-Cambrésis, France,
gift of Barbara and Claude Duthuit, 2010, inv. 2010-1-9.
© 2018 Succession H. Matisse/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
YUA
Phoenix—Yua is a Yup’ik word that represents the
spiritual interconnectedness of all living things, a concept
essential to maintaining balance and order in the
Arctic. An interesting example of yua is the work of
Henri Matisse, who is widely celebrated for his sensuous
approach to color and composition. Largely unknown
to most, however, are his striking black-andwhite
portraits of Inuit people that were inspired, in
part, by a group of Yup’ik masks from Alaska collected
by his son-in-law, Georges Duthuit. In the last decade
of his life, while working on his masterpiece La Chapelle
de Vence, Matisse became interested in both
the physical forms and spiritual concerns of the Inuit,
which later inspired this series of thirty-nine individual
portraits depicting the faces of Inuit men and women.
In Yua: Henri Matisse and the Inner Arctic Spirit,
the Heard Museum is presenting a selection of these
little-known works augmented with a group of Yup’ik
masks and cultural objects, archival photographs,
movies, and ephemera. In addition to this rare presentation
of obscure Matisse works, the exhibition marks
another milestone by being the fi rst to restore a rarely
presented cultural practice of displaying Yup’ik masks
as mated pairs.
Yua will be on view until February 3, 2019, and the
Heard is its only venue.
ABOVE LEFT: Wanelnguq
dance mask. Central
Yup’ik, Napaskiaq village,
Kuskokwim River, Alaska.
C. 1900.
Wood, feathers, pigment.
Collection of the National Museum
of the American Indian, Smithsonian
Institution, inv. 9/3432.
Photo: NMAI Photo Services.
RIGHT: Dance mask
representing the Moon-
Woman.
Central Yup’ik, Lower Yukon,
Alaska. C. 1870.
Wood, pigment, vegetal fi bers, sinew.
Private collection.
Photo: Craig Smith.