Alfred Naumoff

Medium: Boat Building, Carving & Jewelry Design

Raised in the small Alutiiq village of Old Harbor, Alfred Naumoff has been carving for nearly 30 years and he is widely recognized for his skill.  He has sold examples of his carvings privately and through the gift stores at the Anchorage Museum of History and Art, the Alutiiq Museum and the Alaska Native Heritage Center.  Additionally, he has contributed pieces to the Alutiiq Museum's permanent collection, acted as a carving demonstrator at the Alaska Native Heritage Center, and taught carving at the Palmer Museum.  In 2005, Naumoff was one of 10 Alutiiq artists who traveled to France to study Alutiiq masks in the Pinart collection, a journey which inspired much of his present work.

Alfred Naumoff studies Alutiiq masks in a French collection

One of Alfred specialties is boat building.  He learned qayaq construction by working with the Late Larry Matfay, one of the foremost Kodiak Alutiiq tradition bearers of the twentieth century and the last chief of Akhiok.  As such, Naumoff's work reflects a continous chain of knowledge passed through generation of Alutiiq men.  Larry Matfay learned boat building from his father Sava Matfay and his maternal grandfather Kejuk.  Importantly Larry's wife, the late Martha Naumoff Matfay, was Alfred Naumoff's aunt (his father's sister).  Thus, Naumoff's training reflects the Alutiiq tradition of apprenticing young carver to experienced male relatives.