Bill Reid Centre for Northwest Coast Art Studies at
Simon Fraser University

Background

Prologue

The role played by the Haida artist Bill Reid in the revival of Northwest Coast Native art is recognized both nationally and internationally and has been well documented in books and articles. Reid’s emphasis on the thorough understanding of the artistic achievements of Northwest Coast artists was accumulated and refined over more than four decades during which he was closely associated with scholars like Wilson Duff, Michael Kew, Bill Holm, Edmund Carpenter, Claude Lévis Strauss and others. Reid also worked closely with museum curators in North America and in Europe and gained a thorough knowledge of the best historical collections of art and ethnography worldwide. Reid also put great effort into establishing good working relationships with aspiring young Native artists on Haida Gwaii and throughout the coast. Those artists continue to carry on his artistic legacy.

Reid’s own talents ranged from fine jewellery in precious metals to monumental pieces in plaster, bronze and wood. All of his monumental pieces are now national icons, which in turn led the Bank of Canada to choose his art to represent all Canadian arts and culture on the new $20 bill.

Much of Reid’s time was spent in supervising apprentices in the grammar of Northwest Coast graphics and sculptural forms. Successful contemporary artists such as Robert Davidson, James Hart, Don Yeomans, Guujaaw and many others obtained much of their training from him and his emphasis on the well-made object has subsequently guided them in their highly successful careers.

Summary of the Objectives of the Centre

Since Bill Reid’s death in 1998 and the closing of his atelier on Granville Island, there has been a void in the training of apprentices in Northwest Coast art forms in British Columbia. Since then, Vancouver has lacked a dynamic centre open to all, where scholars and visual and performance artists can interact with each other on a regular basis. It is therefore appropriate that a centre bearing Bill Reid’s name should be established at Simon Fraser University to promote scholarly research and greater public understanding of the Native art of the Northwest Coast.

It is anticipated that a centre in honour of Bill Reid will attract sufficient funding through research grants and private support to operate the centre and to nurture new generations of students and artists.

The Bill Reid Centre at the Harbour Centre campus of SFU will provide a space where students and artists could meet with Native and non-Native members of the public at workshops, studio sessions, lectures, seminars, and a variety of social and cultural events. The resource centre will include traditional reference materials but will emphasize digital libraries and archives that draw together seamlessly the contents of literally hundreds of repositories of Northwest Coast Native art that have already been digitized. Consortia of digital museums and archives are forming between institutions in North America, Europe, Asia and the Pacific region that can benefit future generations of students and scholars at universities that host the relevant portals.

The Bill Reid Centre at Harbour Centre will provide a needed physical meeting ground for students and scholars of diverse backgrounds on the West Coast and serve as a virtual access portal for Native Community Centres, museums and academic departments around the world.

Much of Reid’s artistic production pushed the boundaries of materials and fabrication processes that led to new kinds of Northwest Coast art including fashion, furnishings, architecture and personal adornment. He embraced new technologies like binocular laser scanning, using technology developed by the National Research Council, of his monumental works for conservation and replication purposes. His work laid the foundation for the imminent development of a vernacular style for the Northwest, analogous to the Southwestern style in the U.S. The powerful elements of the Northwest Coast style communicate across cultural frontiers and would be most appropriate as the lead expression for the evolution of a Pacific Rim style. Simon Fraser University, with its range of campus specialties and interests is perfectly suited to spearhead such a stylistic innovation.

Mission Statement: The Mission of the Bill Reid Centre is to promote an understanding of the history and principles of Northwest Coast aboriginal art, through new research, connoisseurship and apprenticeships in the traditional arts of the region.