Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas is a visual artist and author, with art in public spaces and private collections. Major museum collections in North America and Europe include the British Museum, the Quai Branly Museum, the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Seattle Art Museum, Denver Art Museum, Vancouver Art Gallery, and the Humboldt Forum.

Yahgulanaas has a long history of community service supporting progressive financial and political developments involving Indigenous Peoples, philanthropic organizations, and governments in North America and internationally.

Early life Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas was born in Prince Rupert, British Columbia in 1954 and grew up alongside Delkatla, near the fishing village of Masset on Haida Gwaii, off the north coast of British Columbia. He is a descendant of the influential Haida artists, Isabella Edenshaw, Charles Edenshaw and Delores Churchill

As a young artist, he covered the walls and ceilings of his bedroom with drawings. He is the eldest grandson of 7laanaas Auu Gala, Oliver Adams, who was the Hereditary Chief of Massett. The presence and status of the Arts in this community were important influences. At age 22, he began to direct his artistic endeavors outward, to effect change in the community and in relation to broader movements of environmental activism.

Art career Training In 1978, Yahgulanaas began his formal training in the classical forms of Haida art; Yahgulanaas became a full-time artist after several decades working to protect the biocultural diversity of Haida Gwaii.

Haida manga While Yahgulanaas trained under master carvers, his brief exposure to Chinese brush techniques with Cantonese artist Cai Ben Kwan in the 1990s encouraged a departure from the typical expressions of the Haida art form and the development of a new genre of narrative art called "Haida manga".

Haida Manga blends Pacific Northwest Indigenous iconographies and framelines with the graphic dynamism of Asian manga. Haida Manga is committed to hybridity as a force that opens a third space for critical engagement. It offers a way of viewing and engaging with social issues as it seeks participation, dialogue, reflection, and action.

Sculpture Yahgulanaas's works in metal include commissions from the British Museum (2010). As of September 2026, the British Museum in London continues to exhibit their Yahgulanaas sculpture on the main floor gallery. The City of Vancouver (2011) commissioned what is their largest public art sculpture installed at the intersection of Knight and 33rd streets. The 2010 Winter Olympics commissioned a work and installed it on the grounds of the University of British Columbia at the entrance to the Thunderbird Stadium. In 2015, the Yahgulanaas sculpture Sei, a 12 ton stainless sculpture depicting a sei whale, was unveiled at the Vancouver International Airport. In January 2016, the platinum leafed Yaris car hood Yelthadaas from the Coppers From the Hood series joined the permanent collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. This work was put on display in 2017 and was hung in Gallery 399, between the Modern and Contemporary Art wing and the Rockefeller Wing, where contemporary art borders Indigenous art.

Selected exhibitions Yahgulanaas has featured in the following exhibitions.

Solo exhibitions Diaries after a Flood, Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto, Canada, 2024 JAJ, Humboldt Forum, Berlin, Germany (permanent installation) Above the Flood, Bowen, BC. Canada 2026 Daalkaatlii Diaires 9 works from a 26 piece series on exhibit at the Quai Branly de Jacques Chirac, Paris, France (permanent installation) Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas – Traveling the Museum, Museum of Anthropology at UBC, Vancouver, BC, Canada, 2007 Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas, Glenbow Museum, Calgary, AB, Canada, 2009 Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas and Edward Burtynsky, Glenbow Museum, Calgary, AB, Canada, 2009 Emily Carr and Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas, Masters Gallery, Calgary, AB, Canada, 2013 Old Growth, grunt gallery, Vancouver, BC, Canada, 2013 The Seriousness of Play, Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art, Vancouver, BC, Canada, 2016 A Tale of Two Shamans, Haida Gwaii, Canada, 2018 Making Mischief, Gallery Jones, Vancouver, Canada, 2021 New Works, Madrona Gallery, Victoria, Canada, 2022

Group exhibitions Skung Gwaii Robe, Haida Gwaii Museum at Qay'llnagaay, Haida Gwaii, Canada, 2002 Raven Travelling, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC, Canada, 2006 What Use Art History?, Art Gallery of the South Okanagan, Penticton, BC, Canada, 2008 Challenging Traditions, Reach Gallery Museum, Abbotsford, BC, Canada, 2010 Visions of British Columbia: A Landscape Manual, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC, Canada, 2010 Haida Made: New Collaborations in Design, Harbourfront Centre, Toronto, ON, Canada, 2010 Continuum: Vision and Creativity on the Northwest Coast, Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art, Vancouver, BC, Canada, 2010 Beat Nation, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC, Canada, 2012 Tokyo Design Week, Milan, Italy, 2015 , McCord Stewart Museum, Montreal, Canada, 2019 Comic Sans, Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada, 2022 Outsider Art Fair, Metropolitan Pavilion, New York City, USA, 2023 Two Squares Equal One with Thomas Seligman at 35 Barlett, San Francisco, 2023 New Terrains: Contemporary Native American Art, Phillips, New York City, USA / From Coast to Coast, Canadian Comics on the Move, Angoulême International Comics Festival, Angoulême, France, 2024 XIÁM, Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art, Vancouver, BC, Canada, 2024

Published works Yahgulanaas has contributed to the following books.

JAJ: a Haida Manga, , (2023) Lost Haida Manga, a compendium, (2026) Carpe Fin: A Haida Manga, , (2019)"Michael Nicoll: Artist Profile." Virtual Museum Canada. Retrieved 1 April 2013. War of the Blink, , (2017) Old Growth: Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas, Liz Park (ed.), , (2012) The Canoe He Called Loo Taas (illustrator), , (2010) The Little Hummingbird, (2010) The Declaration of Interdependence (illustrator), (2010) The Canoe He Called Loo Taas, , (2010) Red: A Haida Manga, , (2009) Flight of the Hummingbird: a parable for the environment, , (2008) Hachidori (2005) A Lousy Tale (2004) The Last Voyage of the Black Ship, , (2001) A Tale of Two Shamans, , (2001) No Tankers, No T'anks (1977) – Volume 1 of the Tales of Raven series

Hachidori has sold over 100,000 copies in Japan, with a single-day record sale of 20,000 copies. Flight of the Hummingbird, first published in North America and now available in five languages, is also a bestseller and includes essays contributed by the Dalai Lama and Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai. Declaration of Interdependence, written by David Suzuki, was illustrated by Yahgulanaas.The Declaration of Interdependence's web site, retrieved 2013-01-11Author bio at his publisher's web site, , retrieved 2013-01-11. Two Canadian Opera companies commissioned Yahgulanaas to write a libretto based on his book Flight of the Hummingbird. In celebration of the potency of diversity which is a critical element in Yahgulanaas oeuvre, powerful new music was created by Maxime Goulet.

JAJ: A Haida Manga was shortlisted for the Jim Deva Prize for Writing that Provokes in 2024.Cassandra Drudi, "2024 BC and Yukon Book Prizes shortlists announced". Quill & Quire, April 11, 2024.

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