#56 • Walter B. Styles "Tlingit Houses, Alaska" Oil Painting
Part of June 2026 Premier Auction (live auction by Alaska Premier Auctions & Appraisals)
High bid $4,700.00
Status: Sold
Category: Art
An important original oil painting entitled Tlingit Houses, Alaska by Walter B. Styles (1862-1948), depicting a historic coastal Tlingit village. Executed in Styles' characteristic realist manner, the composition portrays a cluster of permanent cedar plank houses set along a rocky shoreline, animated by numerous figures engaged in daily life. A canoe rests near the water's edge while a towering carved totem pole rises prominently above the settlement, framed by mist-shrouded mountains and the subdued atmosphere of the North Pacific coast. Among early painters of Alaska, Walter B. Styles occupies a distinctive place as one of the first artists to document the territory and its inhabitants before the profound social and economic changes brought by the Klondike Gold Rush and the rapid modernization that followed. Born in Kingston, New York, in 1862, Styles traveled to Alaska during the 1880s, a period when relatively few artists ventured north. Working largely in isolation and developing a highly naturalistic style, he recorded Indigenous communities, coastal landscapes, and frontier life with an unusual level of detail and sensitivity. His paintings preserve a visual record of a world that was soon to undergo dramatic transformation. The present work is particularly noteworthy for its ethnographic and historical significance. Rather than depicting a generalized Native encampment, Styles presents what appears to be a permanent Tlingit village, complete with traditional clan houses and monumental carving. Such scenes are exceedingly rare among nineteenth-century Alaskan paintings and provide an invaluable glimpse into the architecture and lifeways of Southeast Alaska's Indigenous peoples during a period when photography was still relatively uncommon. The numerous inhabitants dispersed throughout the composition further enhance the narrative quality of the scene, transforming the work from a landscape into a document of everyday life. Paintings by Styles seldom appear on the market, and large-scale examples are especially uncommon. The scarcity of his work is compounded by the fact that relatively little documentary material survives regarding his life and career, lending an added importance to each known painting. His works have long been appreciated by collectors and historians alike for their combination of artistic merit and documentary value, with examples residing in museum and private collections throughout Alaska. Signed and titled "Alaska" by the artist, the painting is presented in an ornate gold-toned frame with brass identification plaque and measures approximately 31.5" x 39.75" overall with a sight view of approximately 25.5" x 33.5". Provenance: Private collection, Anchorage, Alaska. The collection of Charles "Charlie" McAlpine (1932-2019); Kennedy Galleries, Inc., New York, New York
