Reg Davidson is a Haida master carver who is the great-grandson of renowned Haida artist Charles Edenshaw (1839-1920) and the younger brother of Robert Davidson (1946-), with whom Reg apprenticed under early in his career. According to his MOA biography, Reg began carving argillite in 1972 [1]. Reg also co-founded the Rainbow Creek Dancers, a Haida dance group that sings and dances with a variety of masks and regalia, with his brother, Robert, in 1980 [2]. Most recently, Reg was commissioned to create a monumental totem pole for the Craig Tribal Association, a Kaigani Haida community in Alaska, as a symbol of reuniting the Haida people of Alaska with the Haida Nation in British Columbia [3].

This mask is a classic example of Reg Davidson’s carving and painting style. It’s a striking, visually arresting mask that depicts an Eagle Spirit. The mask is rendered with a strong profile and a sharply hooked beak, flared nostrils, and a mouthful of operculum teeth. Eagle Spirit Mask is painted in a bold, but characteristically minimalist, style in red and black. The mostly red field of paint is only interrupted by a single black trigon on the forehead, the black eyebrows, white eyes, and black outlines inside the v-cuts of the nostrils. The Eagle Spirit Mask is framed by red cedar bark rope and bundles of hammered cedar bark.

1. Reg Davidson biography. Museum of Anthropology at UBC MOA CAT. https://collection-online.moa.ubc.ca/search/person?person=669&tab=biography. Accessed 22 August 2025.

2. Robert Davidson website. Rainbow Creek Dancers. https://www.robertdavidson.ca/music-dance. Accessed 22 August 2025.