Curator & Collector

CBC Image of stolen Bill Reid gold artwork

UPDATED (Original post below): CBC has learned disturbing details about the art heist of the Bill Reid artworks at UBC’s Museum of Anthropology. Chiefest among them:

-several cameras mysteriously “went offline” four hours before the incident

-when the cameras went offline, an alarm was tripped, but nothing was done either the security guard or campus security

-silent and audible alarms went off, but nothing there was no response

-the lone security guard conveniently went on a smoke break “about the time” that the heist occurred

-gas masks and pepper spray were used by the thieves

-the security guard did not report the breach

Despite all this,the director of the MOA, Anthony Shelton, claims there is “[no] evidence to suggest the burglary was an inside job.” This may be true, but it certainly appears counter-intuitive.
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ORIGINAL POST:
A terrible story from Curator & Collector’s own backyard today: twelve [not "ten," as previously stated] gold artworks by one of Canada’s greatest artists, Bill Reid, have been stolen from the UBC Museum of Anthropology. Of Scottish-Haida extraction, Reid was in many ways a perfect living symbol of Canada until his death in 1998. He was a very versatile artist, working in different artistic media as sculptor, jeweler, and painter. Several of his works adorn the twenty dollar bill, which remains my favourite of all the paper denominations in the current series. I fear that “The Raven and the First Men”–which Reid sculpted in miniature gold as well as on a larger-scale in yellow cedar–may have been among the stolen artefacts [update: it was not stolen]. This sculpture can be seen on the bottom left of the twenty-dollar bill reverse:

$20 Canadian banknote reverse with Bill Reid artworks

This is a great tragedy for arts and culture in Canada, particularly since, some feel, the gold may be melted down, never to be seen again.
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UPDATE: The CBC has further information here. A gallery of images of the stolen artworks is here.