Bill Reid: The Making of an Indian (review)

Reviewed by: Bill Reid: The Making of an Indian Kenneth R. Lister (bio) Maria Tippett. Bill Reid: The Making of an Indian Random House Canada. xii, 336. $39.95 In the mid-1980s, a tall, grey-haired man shuffled by my office door on his way to visit Dr E.S. Rogers, curator-in-charge of the Royal Ontario Museum's Department of Ethnology. The visit was short and the opportunity did not arise to meet the man, but I was very aware that the passing figure was Bill Reid. The Royal Ontario Museum was not foreign ground to Reid, for it was here more than thirty years earlier that Reid confronted his Haida ancestry. In the company of three Nisga'a totem poles, a Haida house frontal pole in the ROM's collection was much more than just a passing interest to Reid. He was able to walk up the height of the pole rising more than three levels in the ROM's north stairway, that for him had personal resonance. More than half a continent to the east stood a pole from his maternal grandmother's village, Tanu, a pole that during her childhood would have been part of her everyday walk along the beach. My own knowledge of the artist was limited to Bill Reid the 'human monument.' Here was the man who had a successful broadcasting career but gave it up in 1959 to pursue carving projects. Here was the man who in the 1949-51 took courses in jewellery making at Toronto's Ryerson Institute of Technology and became internationally recognized for his jewellery based on Haida designs. Here was the man whom anthropologist Claude Lévi Strauss credited with reviving a flame 'that was close to dying out' among Northwest Coast Native artists. And, most important, here was the man who had created the iconic sculpture Raven and the First Men, that in 1980 was unveiled by Prince Charles in the new Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia. The 'myth' of Bill Reid, however, is too linear, the lines of the story too straight and the steps up the ladder too sure. The excellent biography of Bill Reid's life by Maria Tippett, Bill Reid: The Making of an Indian, has rounded the corners of the story. Divided into three sections - 'A Mixed Heritage,' 'Salvaging a Career,' and 'Bitter Harvest' - Tippett's book is a well-balanced, and in some instances, painfully honest account of Reid's personal and artistic life. It traces Reid's early family history from Haida Gwaii to Victoria, where, with his mother and sister, he spent his formative years. A job as a radio announcer evolved into a broadcasting career during which - following his mother's lead - he buried his Native ancestry. In Toronto, while he was working for the CBC, jewellery making led to a [End Page 577] kindled interest in Haida silversmithing and his own development as an artist merging a Western sense of aesthetics with Haida design. Back on the West Coast, his jewellery was exhibited in art exhibitions, and while he was living both in and away from the West Coast, his reputation grew. Tippett documents his recognition as a 'renaissance man' promoting Native culture through films, radio, writings, and art while also addressing his rich personal and social life, which included women, academics, fellow artists, patrons, and his painful struggle with Parkinson's disease. Over his lifetime, he was awarded prestigious commissions, received numerous awards, involved himself in environmental issues, and by the time of his death in 1998 at the age of seventy-eight he was recognized as the 'undisputed first' in the world of Northwest Coast Native art. Subtitled 'The Making of an Indian,' Tippett's book sets out to deconstruct the myth, and herein lies its greatest value. Reid was an enigma, a 'white man's Indian.' He grew up - personally and artistically - in the non-Native world, but he was adept at bridging the chasm to his Native roots. His view of art was that it must conform to Western aesthetics, and his ability to produce art that spoke to both Native and non-Native tastes secured...

Récupéré en direct depuis OpenAlex et désinversé. Les résumés ne sont pas conservés dans cette base de données : les index inversés représentent 8,6 Go des 9,3 Go de texte de la base, et le serveur dispose de 13 Go libres.