Robert Davidson | Haida Master Artist – Handcrafted Silver & Gold Art

Robert Davidson is one of the Pacific Northwest's most important contemporary artists. He has been immensely influential in the direction that modern Northwest Coast art has developed over the last six decades. He is a master in every medium, including wood, gold, silver, argillite, silkscreen and bronze.

Davidson belongs to the Eagle clan and his Haida name is Guud San Glans, Eagle of the Dawn. Born in Hydaburg, Alaska, in 1946, he grew up in Old Massett, Haida Gwaii. At the early age of 13, he received training as an argillite and wood carver from his father, Claude Davidson, and grandfather, Robert Davidson Sr. Davidson's great grandfather, Charles Edenshaw, was a renowned turn-of-the-century Haida artist. Much of Davidson's cultural knowledge of Haida traditions was passed down to him by his paternal grandmother Florence Davidson, who had been raised in the old Haida ways.

In the late 1960s, Davidson apprenticed with Bill Reid and studied at the Vancouver School of Art. In 1969 he carved and raised a 40-foot totem pole in Old Massett which was the first to be raised in the village since 1871.

In 2015, two 40-foot panels on the Walter Soboleff Building are based on an original painting by Haida master artist Robert Davidson and represent a supernatural being called the "Greatest Echo". The design was replicated in metal, a medium recommended by the institute's Native Artist Committee and installed for the dedication of the Walter Soboleff Center. Davidson's design honors Dr. Walter Soboleff, the building's namesake, who "echoed the past to bring it to the present".