The renowned Haida artist Iljuwas Bill Reid is celebrated as among the most significant Northwest Coast Native artists of the twentieth century. He is best known for the revitalization of Haida arts and techniques, and the marriage of modern form and Haida visual heritage from his own ancestry and learned through the deep close study of historic examples.

A one-time CBC radio broadcaster, Reid pursued deep training in European jewelry and goldsmithing techniques, including later study that he undertook at the Central School of Design in London in 1968. In 1970, a year after moving to Montreal and founding a jewelry workshop, Reid built on his new training and began using the lost-wax method to produce exquisite pieces such as this Grizzly Medallion, wholly cast in gold. The lost-wax technique allowed Reid to emulate the solidity and sculptural plasticity of Haida monumental carving but on the miniature scale of jewelry. He could thus marry the sculptural accomplishments of Haida crest poles and wooden sculpture, like his familiar Bear Sculpture (c. 1963), with the intimacy of engraved bracelets worn as personal adornment and crest displays, such as those by his great-great-uncle Daxhiigang (Charles Edenshaw, 1839-1920), the master Haida artist whose work Reid greatly emulated.

While many of Reid’s early works are direct adaptations of historic examples, including regular recreations of his great-great-uncle’s designs, Grizzly Medallion demonstrates his confidence in marrying classic Haida form with modern innovation. The bear’s face emerges in high relief from the circular medallion, snout overhanging the ribbed rim, a decorative motif that Reid has adapted from argillite dishes by Daxhiigang. The motif is extended here to the sections of the medallion’s intricate chain, linking the wearer to the wide-eyed grizzly through this shared framing, creating an effect of stacked faces in a typically Haida style.

Christopher T. Green, PhD