Bill Reid

The Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art celebrates his legacy through the curation of contemporary Indigenous art. Reid was a matrilineal descendant of K'aadaas Gaa K'iigawaay, who belong to Ḵayx̱al, the Raven matrilineages of the Haida Nation. This matrilineage traces its origins to T'aanuu Llnagaay. His names are Iljuuwas (Princely One), Kihlguulins (One Who Speaks Well), and Yaahl SG̱waansing (Solitary Raven). Some of his major works were featured on the Canadian $20 banknote of the Canadian Journey series (2004–2012).

• Name — Bill Reid • Birth Name — William Ronald Reid Jr. • Born — 12 January 1920 • Birthplace — Victoria, British Columbia, Canada • Died — 13 March 1998 • Place of death — Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada • 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 • Illustration — Bear Sculpture (1963). Cedar and paint

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. His mother, Sophie Gladstone, was Haida, from the Raven/Wolf Clan of T'anuu (Kaadaas gaah Kiiguwaay). 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. Reconnecting with his Haida heritage became a driving force behind Reid's life and art. 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." 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. 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. 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. 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.

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.

• Illustration — Chief of the Undersea World, Vancouver Aquarium • Illustration — 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. • Illustration — Bear Mother, Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat, Ottawa, Ontario • Illustration — The Spirit of Haida Gwaii (The Black Canoe), Canadian Embassy, Washington, D.C., USA • Illustration — Bear, UBC Museum of Anthropology