Dogfish Woman is drawn from another sculpture, The Spirit of Haida Gwaii (1986)—an iconic work Reid commissioned by architect Arthur Erickson for the courtyard of the Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C. The Vancouver International Airport commissioned a second cast of the work which is permanently installed in the international terminal. The work also appears on the back of the Canadian twenty-dollar bill. Dogfish Woman — a mythic figure, distinguished in traditional Haida design by a hooked beak that signifies her transformative powers, and a labret in her lower lip — was a favourite subject of Reid’s who has given her the stylized nose of the shark reconfigured as a crown. Reid’s portrayal of Bear Mother, a Haida woman who becomes the mother of cub children, is depicted with a smooth, human face and stylized fur.
Bill Reid, Dogfish Woman, 1991. Plaster on marble pedestal. SFU Art Collection. Gift of Allan and Faigie Waisman, 2002.
Title
Dogfish Woman
Artist
Bill Reid
Year
1991
Collection
SFU Art Collection
Artists
Haida artist Bill Reid (1920–1998) trained as a jeweler at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute and the London School of Design. After seeing bracelets carved by his great uncle, Charles Edenshaw, Reid became a dedicated student of Haida art and is often cited as the single most important figure in the late twentieth-century renaissance of Haida culture.