Salmon Trap Installation Maquette by Lillian Pitt

Salmon trap installation maquette by Lillian Pitt (Warm Springs/Yakama/Wasco, b. 1944). 18" x 18" x 19" Lillian Pitt was born on the Warm Springs Reservation in Central Oregon in 1944. Celebrated for her mastery of a wide breadth of media, she is best known for her ceramic masks and jewelry, mixed media and found object assemblages, cast glass, and monumental public works. Pitt is from the cohort of esteemed Native American artists in the 1980s who tore down the division between so-called “traditional crafts” and contemporary fine arts, and regularly showed with artists such as Rick Bartow (Wiyot, 1946-2016), Jim Schoppert (Tlingit, 1947-1992), Larry Beck (Yup’ik, 1938-1994), Jaune Quick-to-See Smith (Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, 1940-2025), and Joe Feddersen (Colville, b. 1953). Pitt continues to show in exhibitions around the world and is represented by fine art galleries throughout the Pacific Northwest. This fascinating sculpture is a maquette of a large-scale public art installation by Pitt for the University of Washington that was never completed. The maquette is made from copper tubing, wire, and copper salmon cut-outs that are hung inside the sculpture. This maquette appears to be based on a historic Nuu-chah-nulth/Clayoquath rattle in the collection of the American Museum of Natural History (catalog number 16/1966), [1] which is in turn based on the full-scale salmon traps used on Vancouver Island and the nearby Mainland. The rattle is carved in cedar and is a box-like grid with strung-up salmon figures that rattle when shaken. Even the handle of the rattle and the wire to hang the maquette mirror each other in their position and orientation. As mentioned earlier, Pitt is renowned for her public monumental art installations, and this is a rare opportunity to own a work associated with that part of her artistic practice. 1. “Rattle of small wooden fish suspended in grid, Nuu-Chah-nulth (Nootka), Vancouver Island.” American Museum of Natural History Online Library. https://digitalcollections.amnh.org/asset-management/2URM1T99C3XO?&WS=SearchResults&Flat=FP. Accessed 4 Dec 2025.