Marvin Oliver

Marvin Oliver

From the 1970s until his death in May 2019, Marvin Oliver (Quinault/Isleta Pueblo) merged his Quinault culture in northwest Washington state with a spectrum of unexpected materials and techniques to craft his art. He created enormous sculptures and paintings on buildings, in parks and in other public spaces in many countries, from his 30-foot bronze orca fin in a park in Italy and a totem pole in Japan to a painted bus in Alaska (above) and the carved red cedar “Raven Doors” curated at NMAI’s Cultural Resources Center near Washington, D.C. His glass sculptures are also renowned. At nearly 2 feet tall, “Our River’s Ancestors” is an impressive glass representation of a traditional Quinault fish basket that has caught salmon spirits who have human hands in place of fins. The piece honors the salmon, a fish essential to the culture and subsistence of the Quinault people. The etched image inside is from a 1930s photograph of Native fishermen using dipnets at Columbia River’s Celilo Falls, a site submerged when the construction of the Dalles Dam was completed in 1957. Photo by Hall Anderson