Bill Reid

{{Other uses|William Reid (disambiguation){{!}}William Reid}}

{{redirect|William Reid Jr.|the American football player and coach|Bill Reid (American football coach)}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Bill Reid

| image =

| imagesize =

| alt =

| caption =

| birth_name = William Ronald Reid Jr.

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1920|01|12|df=yes}}

| birth_place = Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

| death_date = {{Death date and age|1998|3|13|1920|01|12|df=yes}}

| death_place = Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

| nationality =

| occupation = sculptor, activist, environmentalist

| works = The Spirit of Haida Gwaii
Chief of the Undersea World
The Raven and the First Men

| awards = Order of British Columbia

| website =

}}

File:Haida bear figure (UBC-2010).jpgWilliam Ronald Reid Jr. {{Post-nominals|country=CAN|OBC|RCA|size=100%}} (12 January 1920 – 13 March 1998) also known as Iljuwas, was a Haida artist whose works include jewelry, sculpture, screen-printing, and paintings.{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Bill Reid |encyclopedia=The Canadian Encyclopedia |url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/william-ronald-reid |access-date=2024-12-16 |last=Sheenan |first=Carol |date=2010}} Producing over one thousand original works during his fifty-year career, Reid is regarded as one of the most significant Northwest Coast artists of the late twentieth century.{{Cite book|last=McMaster|first=Gerald|title=Iljuwas Bill Reid: Life & Work|publisher=Art Canada Institute|year=2020|isbn=978-1-4871-0242-5|location=Toronto}} The Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art celebrates his legacy through the curation of contemporary Indigenous art.{{Cite web |title=Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art |url=https://www.billreidgallery.ca/ |access-date=2024-12-13 |website=Bill Reid Gallery}}

Reid was a matrilineal descendant of K'aadaas Gaa K'iigawaay,{{cite web |first1= |title=Hereditary Chiefs Council |url=https://www.haidanation.ca/hereditary-chiefs-council/ |access-date=15 June 2022 |website=Council of the Haida Nation |date=29 March 2017 }} who belong to Ḵayx̱al, the Raven matrilineages of the Haida Nation. This matrilineage traces its origins to T'aanuu Llnagaay.{{cite web |title=Vancouver Island University Convocation |url=https://services.viu.ca/sites/default/files/web_program_academic_june_2019_0.pdf |website=Vancouver Island University |access-date=15 June 2022 |ref=p 17}}{{cite web |title=NINE HAIDA ELDERS RECEIVE VIU'S MOST PRESTIGIOUS AWARD FOR LANGUAGE AND CULTURE PRESERVATION |url=http://www.firstnationsdrum.com/2019/04/nine-haida-elders-receive-vius-most-prestigious-award-for-language-and-culture-preservation/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190515052425/http://www.firstnationsdrum.com/2019/04/nine-haida-elders-receive-vius-most-prestigious-award-for-language-and-culture-preservation/ |url-status=usurped |archive-date=May 15, 2019 |website=First Nations Drum |date=30 April 2019 |access-date=15 June 2022}} His names are Iljuuwas (Princely One), Kihlguulins (One Who Speaks Well), and Yaahl SG̱waansing (Solitary Raven).{{cite book |last1=Reid |first1=Bill |title=Solitary Raven |date=2000 |publisher=Douglas and MacIntyre Ltd |location=Vancouver |isbn=1-55054-797-6 |pages=13, 14 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dsH2msCyGdEC&q=solitary+raven |access-date=15 June 2022}}

Some of his major works were featured on the Canadian $20 banknote of the Canadian Journey series (2004–2012).

Biography

=Early years=

William Ronald Reid Jr., was born 12 January 1920 in Victoria, British Columbia. His father was William Ronald Reid Sr., an American of Scottish-German descent.[http://www.civilization.ca/cmc/exhibitions/aborig/reid/reid02e.shtml Bill Reid], Can. Museum of Civilization His mother, Sophie Gladstone, was Haida, from the Raven/Wolf Clan of T'anuu ({{Langx|hai|Kaadaas gaah Kiiguwaay}}).{{cite web |url=http://theravenscall.ca/en/who/life_story |title=Who was Bill Reid? |author=Bill Reid Foundation |year=2010 |work=The Raven's Call |publisher=virtualmuseum.ca |access-date=14 January 2012 |archive-date=27 October 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171027035534/http://theravenscall.ca/en/who/life_story |url-status=dead }} Gladstone, born in the Haida village of Skidegate, attended residential school in Sardis, British Columbia, and consequently did not pass on her Haida heritage to her son.{{Cite book |last=McMaster |first=Gerald |title=Iljuwas Bill Reid: Life & Work |publisher=Art Canada Institute |year=2020 |location=Toronto |pages=74}} Reconnecting with his Haida heritage became a driving force behind Reid's life and art.{{Cite web |title=Bill Reid: Life & Work |url=https://www.aci-iac.ca/art-books/iljuwas-bill-reid/ |access-date=2024-12-13 |website=Art Canada Institute - Institut de l’art canadien |language=en}}

When Reid was in his early twenties, he visited his ancestral home of Skidegate for the first time since he was an infant. He desired to connect with his relatives and his Indigenous identity, later commenting that "in turning to his ancestors, in reclaiming his heritage for himself, he was . . . looking for an identity which he had not found in modern western society."{{Cite book |last=Shadbolt |first=Doris |url=https://archive.org/details/billreid0000shad |title=Bill Reid |publisher=Douglas & McIntyre |year=1986 |isbn=9780295964270 |location=Vancouver |pages=13 |access-date=2024-12-16 |url-access=registration}} In Skidegate Reid spent time with his maternal grandfather, Charles Gladstone, a traditional Haida silversmith. Gladstone first taught Reid about Haida art, and through him, Bill inherited his tools from his great-great-uncle Charles Edenshaw, a renowned chief and artist who died the year Reid was born.{{cite book|last1=Harris|first1=Christie|url=https://archive.org/details/ravenscry0000harr|title=Raven's Cry|date=1966|publisher=McClelland and Stewart|location=Toronto|page=[https://archive.org/details/ravenscry0000harr/page/189 189]|isbn=9780771040337 |url-access=registration}}{{cite book|last1=Wright|first1=Robin K.|title=Charles Edenshaw|last2=Ginson|first2=Mandy|date=2013|publisher=Black Dog Publishing|isbn=9781908966209|editor1-last=Wright|editor1-first=Robin K.|location=London|page=228|editor2-last=Augaitis|editor2-first=Daina}}

In 1944, Reid married his first wife, Mabel van Boyen. In 1948, the couple moved to Toronto, where Reid further developed his keen interest in Haida art while working as a radio announcer for CBC Radio and studying jewelry making at the Ryerson Institute of Technology. During his spare time, he made regular trips to the Royal Ontario Museum and admired the carved Haida pole installed in the main stairwell, which originated from his grandmother's village of T'aanuu. Upon completing his studies, Reid made his first Haida-inspired piece of jewelry, a bracelet resembling the ones he saw his maternal aunt wear when he was a child.

In 1951, Reid returned to Vancouver, where he eventually established a studio on Granville Island. He became greatly interested in the works of his great-great uncle Edenshaw, working to understand the symbolism of his work, much of which had been lost along with many Haida traditions. During this time Reid also worked on salvaging artifacts, including many intricately carved totem poles, which were then moldering in abandoned village sites. He assisted in the partial reconstruction of a Haida village in the University of British Columbia Museum of Anthropology (MOA). In 1986, Reid's work was featured in an exhibit at the MOA, "Beyond the Essential Form" curated by William McClennan.{{Cite web |title=Bill Reid: Beyond the essential form - Audrey and Harry Hawthorn Library and Archives |url=https://atom.moa.ubc.ca/index.php/bill-reid-beyond-essential-form |access-date=2024-12-17 |website=atom.moa.ubc.ca}} The exhibit catalog was later published by the University of British Columbia Press as Bill Reid: Beyond the Essential Form by Karen Duffek, Curator: Contemporary Visual Arts & Pacific Northwest.{{Cite book |last=Duffek |first=Karen |url=https://archive.org/details/billreidbeyondes0000duff |title=Bill Reid : beyond the essential form |publisher=University of British Columbia Press |year=1986 |isbn=9780774802635 |location=Vancouver |language=en |oclc=243614105 |access-date=2024-12-16 |url-access=registration |via=Internet Archive}}

Working in the traditional forms and modern media (usually gold, silver and argillite), Reid began by making jewellery. He gradually explored larger sculptures in bronze, red cedar and Nootka Cypress (yellow cedar), usually portraying figures, animals, and scenes from Haida mythology. He intended to express his ancestors' visual traditions into a contemporary form.{{cite web|url=http://www.moa.ubc.ca/exhibits/online_sourcebooks.php |title=Online Sourcebooks | Museum of Anthropology at UBC |access-date=2012-02-12 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120127134833/http://moa.ubc.ca/exhibits/online_sourcebooks.php |archive-date=2012-01-27 }}, Museum of Anthropology

=Major works and awards=

Reid's most popular works are three large bronze sculptures. Two depict a canoe filled with human and animal figures: one black, The Spirit of Haida Gwaii, is at the Canadian Embassy, Washington, D.C., in the United States; and one green, The Jade Canoe, is at Vancouver International Airport, in British Columbia.{{Cite book |last=Tepper |first=Leslie |title=The Grand Hall: First Peoples of Canada's Northwest Coast |publisher=Library and Archives Canada |year=2014 |isbn=9780660202792 |pages=36}} The third sculpture, Chief of the Undersea World, depicts a breaching orca and is installed at the Vancouver Aquarium. Plaster casts of these sculptures are held by the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Canada.

His 1965 painting Smallpox is exhibited at the Canadian Museum of History.{{Cite book |last=Tepper |first=Leslie |title=The Grand Hall: First Peoples of Canada's Northwest Coast |publisher=Library and Archives Canada |year=2014 |isbn=9780660202792 |pages=98}} Reid's Raven and the First Men carving based on the Haida legend was unveiled{{Cite web |last=Cross |first=Anne |date=1990 |title=The Raven and the First Men: From Conception to Completion |url=https://moa.ubc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Sourcebooks-Raven_and_the_First_Men.pdf |website=UBC Museum of Anthropology}} at the University of British Columbia Museum of Anthropology (MOA) in April 1986.

In 1975, a dialog between Reid and art historian, Bill Holm in conjunction with a Northwest Coast Indian art exhibition, organized by the Institute for the Arts, Rice University, Houston was published as Form and Freedom: A Dialogue on Northwest Coast Indian Art{{Cite book |last1=Holm |first1=Bill |title=Form and freedom : a dialogue on Northwest Coast Indian art |last2=Reid |first2=Bill |publisher=Rice University Institute for the Arts |year=1975}}.

Legacy and honours

Reid received many honours in his life, including honorary degrees from the University of British Columbia, the University of Toronto, the University of Victoria, the University of Western Ontario, York University, and Trent University. He received the National Aboriginal Achievement Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1994, and was made a member of the Order of British Columbia and an Officer of France's Order of Arts and Letters.{{Cite web|url=http://www.gazette.gc.ca/archives/p1/1998/1998-06-27/pdf/g1-13226.pdf|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20130522232342/http://www.gazette.gc.ca/archives/p1/1998/1998-06-27/pdf/g1-13226.pdf|url-status=dead|title=Canada Gazette Part I, Vol. 132, No. 26|archivedate=May 22, 2013}} He was made a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts.{{cite web|title=Members since 1880 |url=http://www.rca-arc.ca/en/about_members/since1880.asp |publisher=Royal Canadian Academy of Arts |access-date=11 September 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110526215339/http://www.rca-arc.ca/en/about_members/since1880.asp |archive-date=26 May 2011 }}

On 30 April 1996 Canada Post issued 'The Spirit of Haida Gwaii, 1986–1991, Bill Reid' in the Masterpieces of Canadian art series. The stamp was designed by Pierre-Yves Pelletier based on the sculpture The Spirit of Haida Gwaii (1991) by William Ronald Reid in the Canadian Embassy, Washington, United States. The 90¢ stamps are perforated 12.5 x 13 and were printed by Ashton-Potter Limited.{{Cite web |url=http://data4.collectionscanada.gc.ca/netacgi/nph-brs?s1=%28art.TITP.%29+Or+%28art.TITI.+And+null.B742.%29&l=20&d=STMP&p=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.collectionscanada.gc.ca%2Farchivianet%2F02011702_e.html&r=12&f=G&Sect1=STMP |title=Canada Post stamp |access-date=2018-11-07 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130101051500/http://data4.collectionscanada.gc.ca/netacgi/nph-brs?s1=(art.TITP.)+Or+(art.TITI.+And+null.B742.)&l=20&d=STMP&p=1&u=http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/archivianet/02011702_e.html&r=12&f=G&Sect1=STMP |archive-date=2013-01-01 |url-status=dead }}

Two of his sculptures, The Raven and the First Men and Spirit of Haida Gwaii, are prominently featured on the $20 note in the Bank of Canada's new Canadian Journey (2004) issue, paired with a quotation from author Gabrielle Roy.[http://www.bank-banque-canada.ca/en/banknotes/general/character/2001-04_20.html $20- 2001-2004 Series, Canadian Journey- Bank note series, 1935 to present- Bank Notes- Bank of Canada]

He was the subject of Alanis Obomsawin's 2022 documentary film Bill Reid Remembers.{{Cite web |last=Gratton |first=Marie-Eve |date=2022-03-31 |title=Hot Docs 2022 {{!}} Deux courts films de l'ONF sur des destins hors du commun |url=https://ctvm.info/hot-docs-2022-deux-courts-films-de-lonf-sur-des-destins-hors-du-commun/ |access-date=2024-12-17 |website=CTVM |language=fr-FR}}

=Later years=

Reid participated in the Haida-led blockades of logging roads that helped save the rain forests of Gwaii Haanas (South Moresby). He stopped work on the sculpture in Washington during this period to protest the destruction of the forests of Haida Gwaii, then known as the Queen Charlotte Islands. In 1981, he married Martine de Widerspach-Thor (Mormanne), a French anthropologist.

Reid died on 13 March 1998, of Parkinson's disease, in Vancouver. In July 1998 friends and relatives paddled Lootaas, a large cedar canoe carved by Reid for Expo 86, on a two-day journey along the Pacific coast to bring his ashes to Tanu Island in Haida Gwaii, the site of his mother's village of New Clew.

Gallery

File:Fish aquarium Van.JPG|Chief of the Undersea World, Vancouver Aquarium

File:Raven and the First Men, left side.jpg|The Raven and the First Men, UBC Museum of Anthropology. It depicts part of a Haida creation myth. The Raven represents the Trickster figure common to many mythologies.

File:Bear Mother.jpg|Bear Mother, Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat, Ottawa, Ontario

File:Bill Reid Haida Gail 01.jpg|The Spirit of Haida Gwaii (The Black Canoe), Canadian Embassy, Washington, D.C., USA

Haida bear figure (UBC-2010).jpg|Bear, UBC Museum of Anthropology

References

External links

[https://www.aci-iac.ca/art-books/iljuwas-bill-reid Iljuwas Bill Reid: Life & Work] by Gerald McMaster, published by the Art Canada Institute
[http://www.billreidfoundation.ca/banknote/index.htm Bill Reid Foundation] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170908214249/http://www.billreidfoundation.ca/banknote/index.htm |date=2017-09-08 }}
[http://douglasreynoldsgallery.com/bill-reid Article on Bill Reid (2019)]
[https://douglasreynoldsgallery.com/artist/bill-reid/ Douglas Reynolds Gallery (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada)]
[http://www.nfb.ca/film/bill_reid "Bill Reid"], 1979 NFB documentary
[http://www.cbc.ca/archives/categories/arts-entertainment/sculpture/the-life-and-legend-of-bill-reid/the-farewell-screen.html "The Life and Legend of Bill Reid"], CBC Digital Archives
[http://theravenscall.ca/en The Raven's Call / L'Appel du Corbeau] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170804194936/http://theravenscall.ca/en |date=2017-08-04 }} virtual exhibition from the Virtual Museum of Canada