||| FROM ELLEN ROBERTS for FRIDAY HARBOR FILM FESTIVAL |||
Haida artist Robert Davidson, one of Canada’s most respected and important contemporary visual artists, will visit Friday Harbor on April 28 and 29 to participate in Friday Harbor Film Festival’s Best of the Fest series sponsored by SaviBank. Full details about all of this weekend’s special events, sponsored by Jay and Suzy Wakefield, are available at fhff.org.
A Northwest Coast native of Haida and Tlingit descent, Robert Davidson is a master sculptor of totem poles and masks and works in a variety of other media as a printmaker, painter, and jeweler. He is best known as an impeccable craftsman whose creative and personal interpretation of traditional Haida form is unparalleled.
For more than fifty years now, Robert Davidson has worked as an artist and has produced an internationally acclaimed body of work. His work is found in a number of private and public collections including the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Canadian Museum of History in Hull in Quebec, and the Southwest Museum in Los Angeles. His Haida name is Guud Sans Glans which means “Eagle of the Dawn.”
Davidson’s passion to revive and perpetuate a variety of forms of Haida cultural expression, including song, dance, and ceremony, has fueled his remarkable output throughout the years. He has been responsible, among other things, for carving and raising the first totem pole in nearly 90 years in his hometown of Massett, Haida Gwaii when he was just 22 years old. His inspiration was to give his elders a chance to celebrate culture in a way they had not been able to in their lifetimes. He has been a key player in the revival of coastal indigenous art.
Davidson was born November 4,1946, to a particularly notable family of artists. His great grandfather was the famed Haida artist, Charles Edenshaw (1839 – 1924) whose superb artworks were well known in the Haida community. They were also collected and displayed in showrooms internationally during the era before Haida culture was painfully silenced by the Canadian government.
While Robert was growing up, tangible cultural heritage had virtually disappeared from view in Massett. From an early age, he was surrounded by fine carving as both his father, Claude Davidson and grandfather, Robert Davidson Sr. were respected carvers. Robert began carving at the age of 13 when his father insisted that he carry on the family artistic tradition.
In 1965, Robert moved to Vancouver to complete his education at Point Grey Secondary School because his local community did not have a secondary school. Ironically, this move allowed him to learn more about the arts of the Haida Nation, through visits to the Vancouver Museum to see stunning artworks collected from Haida Gwaii.
In 1966, while demonstrating his carving work at Eaton’s in Vancouver, Davidson met the late Bill Reid, who then coached him on sculpture and design for the next eighteen months. Through Reid, he met anthropologist Wilson Duff and artist Bill Holm, and continued to learn about Haida art. In 1967 he enrolled in the Vancouver School of Art (predecessor to the Emily Carr University of Art and Design), a place he credits for developing his drawing.
Today his work is sought after in the global art market, creating an unusual duality—high art pursued by prominent collectors that also embodies the reclamation of nature and traditional culture. He has received many honors for his accomplishments, including: an Inspire Award (formerly, the National Aboriginal Achievement Award) in art and culture, an Order of British Columbia, an Order of Canada, the Governor General’s Award for Visual Arts, the Audain Prize for Lifetime Achievement Award in the Visual Arts, and numerous honorary degrees from universities in Canada and the US.
Robert Davidson is a leading figure in the renaissance of Haida art and culture and is a founding member of the Rainbow Creek Dancers with his brother and fellow artist, Reg Davidson. He is also one of the founding members of the Haida Gwaii Singers Society, started by Terri-Lynn Williams-Davidson. He currently lives and works in White Rock, near Vancouver, BC, and Massett, Haida Gwaii. (adapted from http://www.robertdavidson.ca/)
