Vintage Northwest Tribal Art Fish & Whale Sweatshirt 80s

The Haida artist Robert Davidson compared formline design to an alphabet, and that’s the most useful way to read what’s on this sweatshirt. The swelling black outlines, the bean-shaped ovoids marking eyes and joints, the U-forms standing in for fins and scales — these are named components of a design system belonging to the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian peoples of the northern Northwest Coast, assembled according to rules, not drawn freehand.

The two figures carry weight. Killer Whale is among the most common crests on the coast, a Tsimshian clan identity and, in the oral traditions, associated with family bonds and travel. Salmon is the region’s central resource and a spiritual figure in its own right. Look closely at the orca’s body here and a human face stares back out of it — another formline convention, figures nested inside figures.

Printed in black and red on oatmeal, credited to Real American Actionwear, © ’88, on a Quitman USA blank. Nothing on the garment indicates who drew it.

A visual language, reproduced by a sportswear company.