Arnold Jacobs

Arnold Jacobs (b. 1942) is an Onondaga (Turtle Clan) artist and condoled confederacy chief living on Six Nations of the Grand River territory. He graduated from the studio art and design training program at Central Tech in Toronto in 1966. Jacobs was later employed as a commercial artist for W. L. Griffin Printing in Hamilton for fourteen years. In 1984, he opened a commercial art gallery in his home before launching Two Turtles Gallery in Ohsweken, which sold his original artwork and promoted emerging Six Nations artists.

Jacobs is recognised for applying historical Haudenosaunee teachings to his commercial work, pendant jewellery, prints, paintings, and sculpture. He remains committed to empowering Indigenous youth through visual art and sharing Six Nations cultural practices with the world. From 2001 to 2008, his award-winning “flying eagle” design was embossed on Air Canada’s Boeing 767 jet, and in 2019 he was awarded the Ontario Arts Council’s Indigenous Arts Award. Jacobs’s work resides in private and public art collections in Canada and the United States including the Smithsonian Institution (Washington, DC), Iroquois Museum (Howes Cave, NY), Canadian Museum of History (Hull, QC), and Woodland Cultural Centre (Brantford, ON).