The Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coastal Art

The Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coastal Art (all photos by me)

Once again, I’m visiting family in Vancouver while also reacquainting myself with the city I was born and raised in. For those of you who may not be familiar with Vancouver and its environs, the legacy, culture, and too often tragic history of the First Nations (indigenous) people of the Pacific Northwest are very much woven into British Columbia’s sense of identity. In particular, the Pacific coast people—including the Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, Coast Salish, Kwakiutl, Nuu-chah-nulth, Nisga’a, and Gitxsan—developed rich artistic traditions whose essential purpose was to tell fundamental stories about their world and its origins.
 
I paid a visit during this trip to the Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest CoastalArt, a small gem of a building tucked between the Cathedral Place and Park Place office towers along Burrard Street. The museum’s namesake, Bill Reid (1920-1998), was one of Canada’s most famous First Nations artists. Born in Victoria, B.C. to a Haida mother and American father of German-Scottish decent, Reid was a celebrated Haida artist, sculptor, author, and journalist.
 

Totem pole

Bill Reid’s major works include Chief of the Undersea World (the fountain sculpture outside the Vancouver Aquarium) and Raven and the First Men (on display at the Museum of Anthropology at UBC). There is also the Spirit of Haida Gwaii: The Black Canoe (the boat sculpture on display at the Canadian Embassy in Washington DC and featured on some Canadian $20 bills).

"Chief of the Underseal World"

"Raven and the First Men"

Haida art is an art of line. Four common characteristics of two-dimensional Haida art are: balance, unity, symmetry, and tension within the design. Flat designs are also compact, highly organized, and have a highly unified structural appearance.

The following are excerpts from the Canadian Museum of History’s descriptions of Haida art:

The Haida fashioned for themselves a world of costumes and adornments, tools and structures, with spiritual dimensions appropriate to each. The decorations on the objects they created were statements of social identity, or reminders of rights and prerogatives bestowed on their ancestors by supernatural beings, or of lessons taught to them through mythic encounters with the animals, birds, fish or other beings whose likenesses were embodied in the crests passed down through generations. . .
 
. . . Many features of what is recognized as the north coast art style are shared by the Haida and their mainland neighbors, the Tsimshian to the east and the Tlingit to the north. This is particularly true of flat designs, which use formlines and ovoids. Primary formlines, which are generally black, outline the parts of each figure. Secondary formlines occur within the primary spaces and are usually red. In rare instances, the two colors are reversed for dramatic effect. There is a formal grammar of formlines, in which rules control the thickness of the line and the changes of direction.
 
A rounded, bulging oval-to-rectangular shape called an ovoid is a feature unique to Northwest Coast art. Ovoids are used to portray a creature's eyes and joints, and sometimes teeth or orifices like nostrils and ears. Small faces are often placed within such ovoids; these refer to the loss of the soul as a prelude to death, for the Haida believe that the soul leaks out of the joints or orifices of the body. . .
 
. . . Haida sculptures range from 20-metre (65-foot) tall totem poles to the equally complex carved handles of horn spoons. This ability to express artistic concepts over a range of sizes and forms has attracted the admiration of art aficionados worldwide over the past two centuries. . .
 
. . . The Haida artistic style has been compared to an ancient language with a visual grammar and vocabulary of animals and mythological creatures. Carved and painted on wood, stone and other materials, these figures tell a story, identify the lineage of a social group, and explore philosophical ideas. In the Haida’s traditional oral society, the visual arts have been a primary means of communication.
 

"Sockeye Salmon"

Nanasimgit Door

The Haida population lost more than 95 percent of its number following its first encounter with colonizing Europeans. Haida art and the Haida language nearly disappeared. Fortunately, a renaissance of Haida culture during the second half of the 20th century included artists guided and inspired by their ancestors. Bill Reid was one of these gifted Haida artists.
 

Bear head door knob

"Kun" (whale)

"Haida Raven"

I like that the art of contemporary Haida artists and artisans extends such a stylish, sophisticated, and highly developed visual syntax laden with meaning and immensely rich tradition. The Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coastal Art not only boasts a small but significant collection of Reid’s work, but also changing exhibits featuring the work of other talented First Nations artists. If you’re ever in Vancouver, a visit to the gallery will be time very well-spent, an opportunity to appreciate a truly significant artistic legacy. 

"Mythic Messengers"

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“Joy is a well-made object, equaled only by the joy of making it.” Bill Reid, 1988