Frederick Alexcee
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Frederick Alexcee (1853 – 1940s) was a
Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...
carver and painter from the community of
Lax Kw'alaams A lax is a salmon. LAX as an acronym most commonly refers to Los Angeles International Airport in Southern California, United States. LAX or Lax may also refer to: Places Within Los Angeles * Union Station (Los Angeles), Los Angeles' main tr ...
with
Tsimshian The Tsimshian (; ) are an Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. Their communities are mostly in coastal British Columbia in Terrace, British Columbia, Terrace and ...
ethnicity. Alexcee (his last name has also been spelled Alexie, Alexee, etc.) was born in Lax Kw'alaams, then known as Fort Simpson, in 1853. His father was an
Iroquois The Iroquois ( ), also known as the Five Nations, and later as the Six Nations from 1722 onwards; alternatively referred to by the Endonym and exonym, endonym Haudenosaunee ( ; ) are an Iroquoian languages, Iroquoian-speaking Confederation#Ind ...
laborer from eastern Canada who was in the employee of the
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at Fort Simpson. His mother was Tsimshian from the
Giluts'aaw The Giluts'aaẅ (properly spelled with an Umlaut (diacritic), umlaut over the ''w''), also spelled Gilutsau, are one of the 14 tribes of the Tsimshian nation in British Columbia, Canada, and one of the nine of those tribes making up the "Nine Tri ...
tribe, one of the "Nine Tribes" from the lower
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area based at Lax Kw'alaams. In the matrilineal system of the Tsimshian, Alexcee followed his mother as a Giluts'aaw and as a member of the
Gispwudwada {{Inline citations, date=December 2024 The Gispwudwada or Gisbutwada (variously spelled) is the name for the Killerwhale "clan" ( phratry) in the language of the Tsimshian nation of British Columbia, Canada, and southeast Alaska. It is considered a ...
(Killerwhale clan or phratry). His Tsimshian name was 'Wiiksmwan, meaning Great Deer Woman. Alexcee was trained as a halaayt carver, with "halaayt" denoting shamanic practices traditionally reserved for chiefs. He crafted naxnox (spirit) paraphernalia and items for use in "secret society" ceremonies. These practices were among those targeted for eradication by late-19th-century missionaries in Lax Kw'alaams. Alexcee also carved for the Indian curio trade and produced paintings and drawings depicting traditional life in Port Simpson. In 1927, two of his paintings were exhibited at the
National Gallery of Canada The National Gallery of Canada (), located in the capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, is Canada's National museums of Canada, national art museum. The museum's building takes up , with of space used for exhibiting art. It is one of the List of large ...
. He carved human figures to adorn a baptismal font in Port Simpson's
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church. He died some time in the 1940s. Works of his can be found at the
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's Museum of Anthropology, the Museum of Northern British Columbia in
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, the New Westminster Museum and Archives, the
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in
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, and the
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in
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, England.


Bibliography

* Barbeau, Marius (1945) "Frederick Alexie: A Primitive." ''Canadian Review of Music and Art,'' vol. 3, no. 11/12. *Hawker, Ronald William (1991) "Frederick Alexie: Euro-Canadian Discussions of a First Nations Artist." ''Canadian Journal of Native Studies,'' vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 229–252. *Hawker, Ronald W., "Transformed or Transformative? Two Northwest Coast Artists in the Era of Assimilation" in American Indian Culture and Research Vol. 25, No. 2 (2001), 37–61. *Hawker, Ronald W. Tales of Ghosts: First Nations art in British Columbia, 1922–61. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2003. * *McCormick, Kaitlin A. "Neither One nor the ‘Other’": The Unique Oeuvre of Frederick Alexcee. Unpublished Masters’ Thesis. Ottawa: Carleton University Faculty of Arts and Sciences, 2010. *Simmons, Diedre. "Frederick Alexcee, Indian Artist (c. 1857 to c. 1944)" The Journal of Canadian Art History. 14 (1 August 1992).


Other publications featuring work by Alexcee

*MacDonald, George F., and John J. Cove (eds.) (1987) Tsimshian Narratives. Collected by Marius Barbeau and William Beynon. (Canadian Museum of Civilization Mercury Series, Directorate Paper 3.) 2 vols. Ottawa: Directorate, Canadian Museum of Civilization. *MacDonald, George F. (1984) "Painted Houses and Woven Blankets: Symbols of Wealth in Tsimshian Art and Myth." In ''The Tsimshian and Their Neighbors of the North Pacific Coast,'' ed. by Jay Miller and Carol M. Eastman, pp. 109–136. Seattle: University of Washington Press. *Marsden, Susan (ed.) (1992) ''Suwilaay'msga Na Ga'niiyatgm, Teachings of Our Grandfathers.'' 7 vols. Prince Rupert, B.C.: First Nations Advisory Council of School District #52. *Neylan, Susan (2003) ''The Heavens Are Changing: Nineteenth-Century Protestant Missions and Tsimshian Christianity.'' Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press. {{DEFAULTSORT:Alexcee, Frederick 1853 births 1940s deaths 19th-century First Nations people 20th-century First Nations sculptors 20th-century Canadian sculptors Canadian male sculptors 20th-century Canadian male artists Artists from British Columbia People from Lax Kw'alaams Tsimshian woodcarvers Canadian people of Iroquois descent