Artist Info
Douglas Cranmer
Douglas Cranmer was a Kwakwaka’wakw educator, carver, painter, and printmaker also known by the names Pal’nakwala Wakas and Kesu’. He inherited the title of ‘Namgis chief from his father. Cranmer was trained by Mungo Martin at the Royal BC Museum in Victoria in the 1950s and later assisted Bill Reid in creating Haida-style houses and totem poles for the UBC Museum of Anthropology. From there his works grew stylistically to include visual artistic traditions of Tsimshian, Tlingit, Heiltsuk, and Haida origins. Cranmer was known as an innovator who blended new techniques with the traditional.
In 1962 Cranmer helped to establish The Talking Stick commercial gallery, one of the first Indigenous-run spaces focussing on First Nations art in Vancouver. His works have been shown and collected across Canada. His works were included in a 1967 exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery which marked the first instance in Canada of Indigenous art being presented as equal to western art. Cranmer was later commissioned to create doors and totem poles for the B.C. pavilion at Expo ’67.
