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Born in Regina, Saskatchewan in 1930, Richard Reid now lives in Christina Lake, British Columbia, 300 miles east of Vancouver.  
After graduating high school, Richard attended the Manitoba Technical Institute and received a Diploma in Architectural Drawing. In the following year, he entered the School of Art at the University of Manitoba and received his BFA in 1955.  He lived and worked in Mexico for several months, and then lived and painted from 1960 - 64 in Europe.  He was Chairman of Young Commonwealth Artists, London, England, 1961-64.  He returned to Canada in 1964.  From 1965 to 1970, he taught with the Vancouver School Board in the Adult Education Program.  From 1970 to 1979, he was with the Fine Arts Department at the University of British Columbia, as Assistant Professor and Chairman of the BFA Program.  After leaving Vancouver, Richard became the founding Director of the Grand Forks Art Gallery (1984-2003) and a teacher in Emily Carr College of Art & Design's Outreach Program.  He has received three Canada Council awards, and was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 2004.  He was an Advisory Board Director of CARFAC-BC from 1999 to 2006.
        For more complete details see:
Curriculum Vitae

At art school, (U. of Man. BFA 1955), Richard Reid began his work primarily as a printmaker exploring the various qualities of intaglio printing, (etching, engraving, drypoint, aquatint, etc).  With the prints, the essence of his work had clear 'painterly' attributes. This awareness led to more and more frequent use of oil, acrylic and watercolour painting as the media that suited his sensual approach to the figure and landscape, and the transfiguration of one into the other. The work is perhaps an exploration of the iconic human / land relationship and its place in the human psyche. This provides a condition for the mind and eye to linger in contemplation of personal experience and response. There is a subtle narrative, expressing the diversity and interconnectedness of ecological systems and of our human place in it.       ....read more - artist statement 

Reid's work has been widely exhibited nationally and internationally in over 80 solo and group exhibitions, and is in public collections that include the: Edmonton Art Gallery, Edmonton, Alberta; Grand Forks Art Gallery, Grand Forks, BC; Leighton Foundation, Calgary, Alberta; Penticton Art Gallery, Penticton, BC; Richmond Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC; Sarnia Art Gallery, Sarnia, Ontario; Sharecom Industries, Dewinton (Calgary), Alberta; University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba; University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC; University of Victoria - Maltwood Art Museum and Gallery - Coast Art Trust Collection; and numerous private collections.

He has received awards from the Canada Council for the Arts, 1963, 1964, and 1967; the BC Arts Council - Honor Roll, 1999, Assembly of BC Arts Councils - Arts and Culture Arts Champion Award - 2005, and in 2004 he was inducted into the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts (RCA).

Richard Reid lives at Christina Lake and maintains a studio in Grand Forks, British Columbia.  Beverley Reid is an artist working primarily with fibre/fabric. Please visit her web site.

     



"The paintings continue to bear witness to [...] great humanistic tradition and make no attempt to be anything other than what they are. What we see may be at variance with prevailing trends and artistic fashions of today where "theory" generates visual art and professional advancement. Reid's paintings continue to provide that sensuous pleasure for the eye, a vicarious participation in the artist's intense pleasure with the materials at hand, and the passion inspired by the presence of the figure and nature itself. The warmth implied by such an encounter and Reid's unwavering commitment to the limitless possibilities of applied pigments affirms the persistent creativity of the human spirit".  

Roger Boulet, 2009    – link to complete essay in the Variance exhibition catalogue


"His visual language occupies a space that exists between that which is recognizable and that which is imaginary, and in the end functions as a narrative that tells the story of his life-long affair with image making"              

Helen Sebelius   -
curatorial essay for the exhibition Variance - Kootenay Gallery 2009



 © 2006-20 Richard Reid - all rights reserved