Bear (Furnishing Fabric)

Paul Thiry was born to French parents in Nome, Alaska. Trained as an architect, he was most active in the state of Washington. His design Bear liberally reinterprets formline images created in Indigenous communities of the Northwest Coast. Although the screen-printed lines are heavy and lack the sinuous elegance achieved by Native artists, they embrace midcentury modern aesthetics that were popular in furnishings during this period. The kinds of formline images that may have inspired this textile appear on this làkt or bentwood box by James Johnson (Tlingit, Ch’áak’Dakl’aweidi Clan).