Hok-Hok Kwagiulth Cannibal Bird Mask

Patrons of downtown’s Swan’s Brewery Pub have long enjoyed the extensive selection of art on view, courtesy of the Michael Williams Collection, but current renovations to the pub mean UVic will now benefit from having many of those pieces moved up to campus.

The Fine Arts Building is now home to a pair of large Indigenous art works, including the 1996 Untitled (Hok-Hok Kwagiulth Cannibal Bird Mask) by John Livingston and Calvin Hunt and the large 1986 Untitled (Kwagiulth Split Killer Whale Mask) by Tony Hunt Sr.

Both pieces were installed over Reading Break in February, and both are ideally situated in Fine Arts, which houses the Department of Art History & Visual Studies, itself home to the Williams Legacy Chair in Modern and Contemporary Arts of the Pacific Northwest.

Both the Williams Collection and the Williams Legacy Chair were established as a result of the $17 million bequeath of the Michael Williams estate to UVic after his death in 2000.