ELIZABETH CONRAD HICKOX (1873-1947)
AND HER DAUGHTER LOUISA HICKOX (1896-1962)
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Elizabeth Conrad Hickox and her daughter Louisa are the most famous basketweavers from Northern California. Grace Nicholson of Pasadena
arranged an agreement to buy Elizabeth’s baskets after meeting her in 1908. Nicholson demanded the highest quality baskets that she sold to
prestigious institutions throughout the nation. The Hickox family was better known in the district for Elizabeth’s ruthless husband, Luther, who
was a powerful person. By local standards they were affluent with a gold mine, a car, and trips to San Francisco. Elizabeth’s mother, Polly
(Conrad) Steve, was a Wiyot survivor of the 1860 massacre on Indian Island in Humboldt Bay. She was a fine weaver and taught Elizabeth well,
however Elizabeth’s work is incredibly fine weaving with absolute mastery of maidenhair fern and porcupine quills, the most difficult of
materials. It seems a moot point whether she is following Wiyot or Karuk traditions in her weaving because she creates her own style. She used
traditional pattern elements but with greater dynamism than other Karuk weavers. She spiraled her patterns diagonally up the side of her
baskets. She told O’Neale that "Karoks set marks progressing to the right. A running mark doesn’t need to be reset." The equivalencies
between figure and ground in powerful black and yellow are startling, but she tempered the powerful contrasts with daring elegance of shape in
elevated and attenuated knobs. Her sugar bowl shaped trinket baskets with surprising interior designs are her signature style and the basis of
her stellar reputation as an artist. In contrast her caps are less easily identified and not as well understood. Dealers and collectors are too often
over anxious to attribute any fine cap with quills to her.
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