Bill Reid (artist)

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The sculpture "Raven and the first Men", first exhibited in 1980 and now in the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia . It symbolizes the Haida legend of the raven who discovered the first humans in a shell on the beach at Rose Spit on Haida Gwaii.

Bill Reid , OBC (actually William Ronald Reid ; born January 12, 1920 in Victoria ; † March 13, 1998 ) was a Canadian artist who, influenced by European influences, further developed the art of Haida . His father had German and Scottish ancestors, his mother belonged to the Haida. His mother's father, who also belonged to the Haida, had a great influence. He had again learned from the Haida artist Charles Edenshaw . Mungo Martin , who worked with Reid for ten days , also exerted a certain influence .

biography

Reid's sculpture inspired by Tipus Tiger

Reid worked as a radio announcer in Toronto , but returned to British Columbia in 1951 . In Vancouver , he promoted the preservation of totem poles , studied Edenshaw's art and worked on the reconstruction of a village by the university's ethnographic department ( Museum of Anthropology ).

Reid combined traditional shapes with materials such as precious metals and argillites . He started with jewelry and soon ventured to make larger sculptures in bronze and wood of certain local tree species, especially the giant tree of life and the Nootka cypress (Callitropsis nootkatensis). He was referring to the mythology of the Pacific northwest coast.

In the course of a change in the law that allowed the children of Indian mothers to be recognized as Indians under the Indian Act , Reid submitted a corresponding application. Thus, although originally only the children of Indian fathers were entitled to it, he was also formally recognized as an Indian.

Spirit of Haida Gwaii, the Jade Canoe
Spirit of Haida Gwaii, the Black Canoe

His most famous works are two large bronze sculptures, one in the Canadian Embassy in Washington, DC , the other in Vancouver Airport . The former, designed in black, became known as The Spirit of Haida Gwaii, the spirit of the Queen Charlotte Islands, which are called Haida Gwaii in the Haida language . The other is known as The Jade Canoe, the Jade Canoe, a green work of art.

Reid was politically active in protecting the later Gwaii Haanas National Park on southern Moresby Island , which is part of the Queen Charlotte Islands. He also stopped work when the deforestation of the local rainforest was about to begin.

1994 Reid received an award for services to the culture of the indigenous people , the National Aboriginal Achievement Award, and was a member of the Order of British Columbia .

He died of Parkinson's in 1998 . In July, friends rowed Reid's body in a canoe he himself carved for Expo 86 to Tanu Island in Haida Gwaii, where his mother's village had stood.

The Canadian 20 dollar note today bears an image of the Spirit of Haida Gwaii.

family

Bill Reid's wife, Martine Jeanne Reid, published a book with the memories of her grandmother, a matriarch of the Kwakwaka'wakw , and wrote picture books with myths of the Haida.

literature

  • Daina Augaitus, Lucille Bell, Nika Collison, Vince Collison, Robert Davidson, Jacqueline Gijssen, Guujaw, Marianne Jones, Peter Macnair, Bill Reid, Isabel Rorick, Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas, Don Yoemans: Raven Traveling: Two Centuries of Haida Art . Douglas & McIntyre 2006. Nominated for Bill Duthie Booksellers' Choice Award 2007.
  • Bill Holm : Form and Freedom: A Dialogue on Northwest Coast Indian Art (with Bill Reid) . Institute for the Arts, Rice University, Houston 1975.
  • Chaseten Remillard: Framing Reid: Agency, Discourse, and the Meaning of Bill Reid's Artistic Identity and Works , in: Journal of Canadian Studies / Revue d'études canadiennes 45.2 (Spring 2011) 162-181.
  • Doris Shadbolt : Bill Reid . Douglas & McIntyre, Vancouver / University of Washington Press, Seattle 1986 ( Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize and Bill Duthie Booksellers' Choice Award 1987)
  • Ulli Steltzer: The Spirit of Haida Gwaii: Bill Reid's masterpiece. Douglas & McIntyre, Vancouver undated (approx. 1997)
  • Karen Duffek: Bill Reid: beyond the essential form. University of British Columbia Press in conjunction with University of British Columbia Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver 1986
  • Maria Tippett: Bill Reid: the making of an Indian. Random House Canada, Toronto 2003
  • Robert Bringhurst: Solitary raven: the selected writings of Bill Reid. Douglas & McIntyre, Vancouver 2000
  • Martine J. Reid: Bill Reid Collected , Douglas & McIntyre 2016

Movie

Web links

Commons : Bill Reid  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ^ Karen Duffek, Charlotte Townsend-Gault: Bill Reid and Beyond. Expanding on Modern Native Art , Vancouver 2004, p. 101.
  2. ^ Bank of Canada. Bank note series, 1935 to present. $ 20 note, Background Information
  3. ↑ Paddling to Where I Stand: Agnes Alfred. Qwiqwasutinuxw Noblewoman. UBC Press 2004.
  4. ^ Myths and Legends of Haida Indians of the Northwest: The Children of the Raven. Santa Barbara, California: Bellerophon Books, 1988.
personal data
SURNAME Reid, Bill
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Reid, William Ronald (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian artist, Haida
DATE OF BIRTH January 12, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH Victoria
DATE OF DEATH March 13, 1998