The premier showing of the John Hoover collection of Eskimo art in bone, ivory and wood, is scheduled to open January 15 in the Department of the Interior's Art Gallery, 18th and C Streets, N.W.
The exhibit will be open free to the public, M6nday through Friday from 10:00 a. m. to 4: 00 p. m. and will run through March 29, according to Mrs. Stewart L. Udall, president of the Center for Arts of Indian America, exhibition sponsor.
Entitled, "Qilaut," the Eskimo word for communication with the spirits, the show consists chiefly of pieces of great anthropological significance. Some of the objects are religious, some utilitarian. Some are at least 2,000 years old, according to James McGrath, acting art director for the Bureau of Indian Affairs Institute of American Indian Arts, Santa Fe, N. M. McGrath, along with Yakima Indian sisters, Liz and Sue Sohappy, came to Washington to set up the exhibit. Both girls attend the Santa Fe school.
The owner of the collection, John Hoover, is a well-known Aleut artist of Edmonds, Washington, who with his wife, Barbara, and three children support themselves by fishing trips to Alaska, in addition to selling John and Barbara Hoover's artwork. Hoover purchased the items, some of which have yet to be fully identified, from a former Indian trader's family.
The exhibit is set up in categories such as Birds, Seal Hunting, Fishing, Whale Hunting, and Tools. Under these general headings are included skin scrapers, carved objects, spearheads, net shuttles, talismans for seal and whale hunters, a stone lamp, hunting implements, knives, marrow picks, combs for fur and hair, many ceremonial objects, ivory puppets, and dolls.
After its premier in Washington, the exhibit will be displayed at the Santa Fe school. A photographic catalog describing the various pieces, and containing several Eskimo songs, will be issued to those who attend the Washington showing.
