The New Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery
Examining the new art pieces donated to the VAG and the history of their artist
The Vancouver Art Gallery was recently gifted a staggering 23 art pieces by Haida artist Guud san glans Robert Davidson. The works were created over a period of three decades by one of the most impactful Canadian artists and were contributed by TELUS CEO Darren Entwistle, who stated that each piece presented insight into what Davidson calls a “contemporary-traditional” aesthetic that has lasted many years.
Born in Alaska in 1946, Davidson hailed from a family of renowned artists, including his grandfather Charles Edenshaw, a respected Haida artist whose works were displayed even during a time when Haida culture was discriminated against by the government. As an infant, Davidson and his family relocated to the Haida village of Masset, located on a group of islands known as Haida Gwaii, where he grew up before moving to attend high school in Vancouver in 1965. Just one year later, he became the apprentice to famed Haida carver Bill Reid and after four years, he created and lifted the first totem pole on Haida Gwaii in almost ninety years.
The style of Davidson’s works incorporates both Western and Haida history, displaying an intersection of artistic views from different cultural backgrounds. While his early works tended to be symmetrically composed, Davidson began moving past this style during the early 2000s, as seen in the works donated to the Vancouver Art Gallery. An example of this artistic evolution is the painting Halibut Halibut Halibut, which was originally created in 2000 and seems to present three halibuts. Davidson describes halibuts as a “mysterious creature,” due to the way they live while hugging the ground, which made Davidson wonder if it was possible to get any closer to the earth. He initially sketched the image to contain a single Halibut but later added an additional two, stating that just one “seemed a bit stingy.”
Davidson’s works during this period display a shift and evolution of his artistic style, which can be observed in the works donated to the gallery. His art in the early 2000s incorporated a more diverse use of form and colour, as seen in the aforementioned Halibut Halibut Halibut and the painted drum Second Variation on Tri Neg Drum, which was created in 2001 and was also among the pieces donated. Later, during the mid-2000s, he gravitated towards a more minimalist and abstract style while still being rooted in the Haida visual language, focusing more on individual shapes, bigger figures and two-tone palettes, as seen in works like Chief of the Underworld (2006) and Sea Anemone (2008). Davidson’s recent pieces indicate an ongoing fascination in thorough and symbolic expression in a smooth and vivid style, as depicted in works like Whimsical and Whirlpool Kwaa K’iilee (both 2018) and most emphasized in Driving Killer Whale (2019), which combines the simplicity of traditional minimalisation with the intricacy of Davidson’s ever-growing style.
For many people, this is not just a collection of art pieces, but a living record of growth, narrative and composition from a leading figure in the resurgence of Haida culture and art. Through the Vancouver Art Gallery and other institutions displaying his work, Davidson’s legacy will be immortalised as an important landmark of Haida art history.
