Iljuwas Bill Reid

ART CANADA INSTITUTE INSTITUT DE L’ART CANADIEN CATALYST FOR CHANGE ILJUWAS BILL REID

Few twentieth-century artists have been catalysts for the reclamation of a culture. In the ACI’s new art book Iljuwas Bill Reid: Life & Work, the celebrated curator and scholar Gerald McMaster makes it clear that the iconic Northwest Coast creator was one of them.

Bill Reid watching memorial pole being raised in the Haida Village, 1962

This year marks the centenary of the birth of Iljuwas Bill Reid (1920–1998), one of the most ground-breaking artists in the history of our country. Although Reid’s mother was Haida, he grew up knowing little about the culture because the Indian Act denied him his heritage. Yet, overcoming adversity, Reid went on to become a leader in Northwest Coast art. His influence was unprecedented and his name was publicly confirmed by the Haida community as Iljuwas (Princely One or Manly One). Today, the Art Canada Institute proudly publishes Iljuwas Bill Reid: Life & Work, which joins our open-access digital library of books on artists who have transformed the cultural landscape. Its author, the acclaimed curator and scholar Gerald McMaster, reveals how, during Reid’s fifty-year-long career, the artist innovatively adapted Haida worldviews to the times in which he lived, creating a body of work whose legacy is a complex story of power, resilience, and strength. To celebrate this important publication, here are ten topics drawn from it that explore how Reid lived the reality of colonialism yet tenaciously forged a practice that honoured Haida ways of seeing.

Sara Angel Founder and Executive Director, Art Canada Institute

A PASSION FOR THE JOY OF MAKING

Grizzly Bear Mantelpiece, 1954, Royal BC Museum

As a young man, Reid left a career in broadcasting to become a jeweller, a decision that started him on a path to an extraordinary artistic career. A goldsmith at heart, he was determined that all his works, including large-scale carvings like Grizzly Bear Mantelpiece, 1954, maintain the same surface qualities as a fine piece of jewellery. At the core of his practice and his Haida outlook it was Reid’s fundamental aim, as he put it, to produce a “well- made object, equal only to the joy in making it.” For him, pleasure came through celebrating the magical qualities of the materials with which he was working, innovatively employing the tools that connected him with his ancestors, and articulating narratives that honour the past and enrich the present.

THE DISTINCTION OF NATIONS

Eagle and Bear Box, 1967, UBC Museum of Anthropology

Reid exhibited this work at Expo 67 after he turned down a commission to carve a generic-style totem pole for the Indians of Canada Pavilion. By the 1960s, Reid had been studying Indigenous art from the Pacific Northwest for many years. He was acutely conscious of the distinctions between nations, and he refused to support stereotypes that grouped different cultures together—a view that not everyone shared or understood. As he explained to the organizers of Expo 67, “If you hire a Haida carver you get a Haida pole. If you hire a Kwakuitl [sic] carver you get a Kwakuitl [sic] pole.” Reid’s gold box with an Eagle standing on its lid and a bear at its front was the first of many gold boxes that he would create.

CONNECTION OF WESTERN AND HAIDA CULTURES

Milky Way Necklace, 1969, Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art

This extraordinary gold and diamond masterwork is an example of Reid’s interest in carrying Haida ways of seeing into contemporary, abstract forms. In 1969, while studying in London, England, Reid created this piece, which explores Western modernism, yet always with his heritage at its heart. Although it appears to bear no visible resemblance to Haida art, the concept behind the work reflects Reid’s interest in how his ancestors allowed dual presences to coexist simultaneously in a singular physical space. The necklace brings together two layers of pyramidal forms that meet in joints studded with diamonds. Through the tension between these two elements, Reid connects Western and Haida visual cultures.

A MAN OF MANY STORIES

Cedar Screen, 1968, Royal BC Museum

This screen, a commission from Victoria’s British Columbia Provincial Museum in 1968 (now the Royal BC Museum), was Reid’s first large-scale attempt to combine multiple mythic narratives in the form of a rectilinear relief panel. The work depicts several key figures from Haida stories, including the Raven (Xhuuya); Nanasimgit and a Killer Whale; the Seawolf clenching a whale in his teeth; the Eagle and the Frog; and the Bear Mother story with the Cubs, the Hunter, the Bear Father, the Hunter’s Dog, and the Bear Mother in her human form. As his critical success as an artist grew, Reid enhanced public appreciation for Haida culture by retelling Haida narratives in his art, writing, and broadcasting. To celebrate this project, CBC produced a documentary on the work in which Reid tells the different stories depicted, one of many projects where he spoke about his own understandings of Haida culture.

A VISION FOR TOGETHERNESS

Haida Gwaii community members carrying the Skidegate Skidegate Dogfish Pole, Dogfish Pole, 1978, photograph by Ulli Steltzer 1978, Haida Heritage Centre at Kay Llnagaay

In 1976, as his reputation as a significant Canadian artist developed, Reid embarked on a project at Skidegate, the village in Haida Gwaii where his mother was born. For him, the opportunity to carve and raise a pole there was his way of giving back. He described it as “a gesture of thanks on my part to all the great carvers, and all the people who supported them in the past.” The raising of the pole and the preparations for the event transformed the community, as several Elders provided guidance. As GwaaGanad (Diane Brown) recalls, “That pole brought us together in the culture. [A pole] hadn’t been raised in Skidegate for almost a hundred years.” Reid’s art encouraged the cultural revitalization of the Haida, while also enriching his own ties to the community and strengthening his sense of belonging.

GRAPHIC INNOVATION

Sgwaagan – Sockeye Salmon Pool Sgw’ag’ann, 1991, Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art

Reid was fascinated with the forms of Haida art, and he chose to adapt them for a wide range of media, including works on paper. His serigraph prints like the one above simultaneously embrace traditional visual knowledge and opportunities for contemporary experimentation. Incorporating the powerful lines, U-forms, and ovoids of Haida art, Reid’s graphic compositions reflected the dynamic energy of Northwest Coast art, drawing on what he had learned from studying centuries of works by great artists who could skilfully develop their individual expression in concert with a strong discipline.

MINIATURE TO MONUMENTAL

The Raven Discovering Mankind in The Raven and the First Men, 1980, a Clamshell, 1970, UBC Museum of UBC Museum of Anthropology Anthropology

One of Reid’s most iconic large-scale works, The Raven and the First Men, 1980, first emerged as a diminutive yet fully formed masterpiece. That tiny boxwood sculpture, The Raven Discovering Mankind in a Clamshell, was carved a decade earlier in 1970. Shortly thereafter, the philanthropist Walter C. Koerner commissioned Reid to create a monumental version of it for the UBC Museum of Anthropology. The fabrication of The Raven and the First Men was in no way unproblematic and it took Reid, working closely with several assistants, seven years to complete. Together, they created a cedar sculpture of unprecedented magnitude and complexity.

CULTURAL REVITALIZATION

Loo Taas, 1986, Haida Heritage Centre at Kay Llnagaay

At the height of his career, Reid championed the Haida community. One of his most significant efforts was the creation ofLoo Taas, 1986, a 15.2-metre-long red cedar ocean-going canoe commissioned for Vancouver’s Expo 86 fair and a project that emphasized cultural revitalization. Reid began his career believing that the social patterns that were necessary to produce great Haida art were irretrievably lost to the past. Loo Taas gifted him the opportunity to witness the contrary. Created in Skidegate and with the participation of the community, every step of constructing the vessel asked its makers to enact in the present the knowledge and ways of their ancestors. After being taken to Expo 86 in Vancouver, Loo Taas was paddled back up the coast, following traditional trade routes and visiting many villages along the way. Her homecoming to a “big knock-down” celebration in Skidegate aligned precisely with the Haida victory in the impassioned movement to protect the forests of Gwaii Haanas.

INTERNATIONAL REVERENCE

Spirit of Haida Gwaii, 1986, Canadian Museum of History

Spirit of Haida Gwaii, 1986, is the largest and most internationally revered of Reid’s sculptures. The work depicts a canoe filled with thirteen entangled ethereal beings, the majority of whom are of mythical Haida origin. Seen as both a portrait of Reid and as a depiction of the condition of life on Earth as seen through his eyes, the sculpture is a keystone of the artist’s legacy. Spirit of Haida Gwaii came to be featured as a permanent installation in three major settings. It was commissioned in 1986 for the Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C., but Reid famously halted work on the project in a gesture of solidarity with the Haida people, who were resisting the government’s logging practices. It was only in 1991 that the sculpture (cast in bronze) was installed in the embassy. In 1993, another casting was poured, this time finished with a green patina, and three years later it was placed on display at the Vancouver International Airport with the title Spirit of Haida Gwaii: The Jade Canoe. The original plaster is on permanent exhibition at the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Quebec. The work was featured on the Canadian twenty-dollar bill from 2004 to 2012.

MENTOR TO MANY

Bill Reid and Jim Hart standing on either side of a large wooden relief carving, possibly a door, c.1970s, photograph by William McLennan

As a young man, Reid had learned from the great Kwakwaka’wakw artists Naka’pankam (Mungo Martin) (1879-1962) and Henry Hunt (1923–1985), whose approaches to making art introduced him to traditional cultural practices. Later in his career, Reid had his own assistants, often inviting them to work with him on major monumental projects, including The Raven and the First Men, 1980, and Loo Taas, 1986. Haida artists Guujaaw (b.1953), Jim Hart (7idansuu, b.1952), Robert Davidson (Guud San Glans, b.1946), Reg Davidson (b.1954), and Don Yeomans (b.1958) were among the many sculptors who worked with Reid, and they have gone on to become leading artists in their own right, transforming First Nations art in the Pacific Northwest.

About the Author of Iljuwas Bill Reid: Life & Work Dr. Gerald McMaster is a curator, artist, author, and professor, and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair of Indigenous Visual Culture and Curatorial Practice and director of the Wapatah: Centre for Indigenous Visual Knowledge at OCAD University. Commenting on the significance of this book, McMaster notes “Bill Reid is unquestionably a major figure in Canadian and Haida art history. Both as a person and as an artist, he wrestled with many of the difficult and beautiful aspects of Haida-ness and Canadian-ness that were arising in the later twentieth century.” McMaster’s experience as an artist and curator in art and ethnology museums researching and collecting art as well as producing exhibitions has given him a thorough understanding of transnational Indigenous visual knowledge and curatorial practice.

THANK YOU TO OUR BENEFACTORS

The Art Canada Institute gratefully acknowledges the support of this book’s generous sponsors.

TITLE SPONSOR FOUNDING SPONSOR THE KOERNER FOUNDATION IN MEMORY OF WALTER C. KOERNER

The Art Canada Institute thanks the other sponsors of the 2020–2021 Canadian Online Art Book Project: Anonymous, Alexandra Bennett in memory of Jalynn Bennett, Kiki and Ian Delaney, Andrew and Valerie Pringle, and The Sabourin Family Foundation.

We also thank the 2020–2021 Season Sponsors of the Art Canada Institute: John and Katia Bianchini, Linda and Steven Diener, Richard and Donna Ivey, Michelle Koerner and Kevin Doyle, Alan and Patricia Koval Foundation, Nancy McCain and Bill Morneau, The McLean Foundation, Gerald Sheff and Shanitha Kachan Charitable Foundation, TD Bank Group, and Bruce V. Walter and Erica Segal.

The ACI is a not-for-profit educational charity that receives no government financing or public support. Our work is made possible by an important circle of friends, patrons, and benefactors. If you would like to support our important work, please see this page.

If you enjoyed this newsletter, please share it.

READ PAST NEWSLETTERS

Facebook artcaninstitute/

Instagram @artcaninstitute

Twitter @artcaninstitute

Visit us at aci-iac.ca for more content on Canadian art and artists

Canadian Online Art Book Project

Purchase Available Print Books

Canadian Schools Art Education Program

Art Lecture Videos

Image Credits: [1] Bill Reid watching memorial pole being raised in the Haida Village at Totem Park at the University of British Columbia, 1962, photograph by George Szanto. Collection of the Audrey & Harry Hawthorn Library & Archives, UBC Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver, George Szanto fonds (a035985). Courtesy of UBC Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver. [2] Bill Reid, Grizzly Bear Mantelpiece, 1954, carved and painted red cedar wood, 96 x 200 x 32 cm. Collection of the Royal BC Museum, Victoria, Purchased with assistance of The Audain Foundation for the Visual Arts, 2011 (20395). Image RBCM 20395 courtesy of the Royal BC Museum and Archives. © Bill Reid Estate. [3] Bill Reid, Eagle and Bear Box, 1967. Collection of the UBC Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver, Gifted by Sonja and Michael Koerner in honour of Walter C. Koerner, 1991 (Nb1.717 a-b). Photo credit: Kyla Bailey. Courtesy of UBC Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver. © Bill Reid Estate. [4] Bill Reid, Milky Way Necklace, 1969, 22k and 18k gold, diamonds, 17 cm (inside diameter). Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art, Vancouver, Simon Fraser University Bill Reid Collection, The BCE Group Collection, SFU Bill Reid Collection (2001.1). Courtesy of the Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art, Vancouver. © Bill Reid Estate. [5] Bill Reid, Cedar Screen, 1968, red cedar wood, laminated, 210 x 190 x 14.6 cm. Collection of the Royal BC Museum, Victoria (16639). Image RBCM 16639 courtesy of the Royal BC Museum and Archives. © Bill Reid Estate. [6] Haida Gwaii community members carrying the Skidegate Dogfish Pole, 1978, photograph by Ulli Steltzer. Collection of the Haida Gwaii Museum, Skidegate (Ph 08512). Courtesy of the Haida Gwaii Museum, Skidegate. [7] Bill Reid, Skidegate Dogfish Pole, 1978, cedar, 2500 cm (height), Haida Heritage Centre at Kay Llnagaay, Skidegate, Haida Gwaii. Photo credit: Dorin Odiatiu (2019). Courtesy of Dorin Odiatiu. © Bill Reid Estate. [8] Bill Reid, Sgwaagan – Sockeye Salmon Pool Sgw’ag’ann, 1991, serigraph, 56 x 76 cm. Collection of the Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art, Vancouver, Simon Fraser University Bill Reid Collection, Bill and Martine Reid Founding Collection, SFU Bill Reid Collection (2002.1.43). Courtesy of the Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art, Vancouver. © Bill Reid Estate. [9] Bill Reid, The Raven Discovering Mankind in a Clamshell, 1970, boxwood, 7.0 x 6.9 cm. Collection of the UBC Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver, Gift, 1986 (Nb1.488). Photo credit: Ulli Steltzer. © Bill Reid Estate. [10] Bill Reid, The Raven and the First Men, 1980, yellow cedar, laminated and carved, 188 x 192 cm (height x diameter). Collection of the UBC Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver, Walter C. and Marianne Koerner Collection, 1980 (Nb1.481). Photo credit: Jessica Bushey. Courtesy of UBC Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver. © Bill Reid Estate. [11] Loo Taas, 1986, being paddled at the opening of the Haida Heritage Centre at Kay Llnagaay, 2007, photograph by J. Baird. [12] Bill Reid, Spirit of Haida Gwaii, 1986, plaster and metal, 389 x 605 x 348 cm. Collection of the Canadian Museum of History, Gatineau (92-51, IMG2016-0169-0038-Dm). © Bill Reid Estate. Courtesy of the Canadian Museum of History, Gatineau. [13] Bill Reid and Jim Hart standing on either side of a large wooden relief carving, possibly a door, c.1970s, photograph by William McLennan. Collection of the Audrey & Harry Hawthorn Library & Archives, UBC Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver, William McLennan fonds (a035175c). Courtesy of UBC Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver.