William Heick
Encyclopedia
William Heick is a San Francisco based photographer and filmmaker. He is best known for his ethnographic photographs and documentary films of North American Indian cultures. W.R. Heick served as producer-director and chief cinematographer for the Anthropology Department of the University of California, Berkeley
on their National Science Foundation supported American Indian Film Project. His photographs capture the life and culture of Native Americans from the Kwakiutl
, Kashaya Pomo
, Hupa
, Navajo
, Blackfoot
and Sioux
.http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1998/10/30/EB86274.DTL&type=printable He filmed a number of award winning films in this series along with the documentaries Pomo Shaman and Sucking Doctor, a Pomo doctoring ceremony considered by anthropologists to be one of the most complete and outstanding films of an aboriginal ceremony made to date.
, the California Palace of the Legion of Honor
, the DeYoung Museum, the Seattle Museum of Art, the Henry Gallery (University of Washington), the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, and the University Art Gallery (Cal State at Chico) among others. His photographs have been selected for the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Smithsonian Institution
, the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, and the Monterey Peninsula Museum of Art.
In a published "Art Scene" review Monterey landscape artist and art critic Rick Deregon wrote: "The special qualities of W.R. Heicks's images come from the simple relationship between the photographer and subject. With no agenda other than to capture the decisive inspirational moment and to illustrate the human parade Mr. Heick's work transcends straight journalism and aspires to an art of nobility and compassion."
) under such notable teachers as Ansel Adams
and Minor White
. He became lifelong friends with Imogen Cunningham
and Dorothea Lange
and regards these two photographers as the primary influences on his photographic work.
William Heick filmed two documentaries about Pacific Northwest Indian tribes, Blunden Harbour (1951) and Dances of the Kwakiutl
(1951).
W.R. Heick worked through most of the 1950s and 1960s as producer-director, assistant historian and cinematographer for the world wide engineering firm of Bechtel
Corporation. While with Bechtel he wrote and filmed documentaries of their major projects with special emphasis on ethnic and social consideration in remote areas of the Arctic, South America, Africa, Greenland, Europe, The Middle East, Australia, Indonesia and the islands of New Guinea and Bougainville. From 1956 to 1964 Heick was involved with C. Cameron Macauley
in the American Indian Film Project, a project to document Native American culture
s through film and sound recordings, working closely with Alfred Kroeber and Samuel Barrett
.
William Heick produced two documentaries for the Quakers. Beauty for Ashes documents the Quaker's project to rebuild 40 churches that had been burned by nightriders during Mississippi's racial strife in the turbulent 1960s. Voyage of the Phoenix documents the controversial voyage of the yacht Phoenix
, which sailed through the American battle fleet during the Vietnam War
to deliver medical supplies to North Vietnam when the bombing of that beleaguered country was at its peak.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s W.R. Heick served as cinematographer on three feature films, all for the director/artist Fredric Hobbs
: Troika (1969, co-directed by Gordon Mueller), Alabama's Ghost (1973), and The Godmonster of Indian Flat (1973).
During the mid-1970s, working as an independent producer with Gordon Mueller, W.R. Heick produced the Indonesian Dance Series. This series, funded with grants from Caltex Pacific Indonesia and Pertamina
, documents fourteen traditional dance performances from the islands of Java
, Bali
, Sumatra
and Kalimantan
.
W.R. Heick's later films include The Other China, a four-part mini-series filmed on location in Taiwan
in 1988 documenting the social and cultural fabric of Taiwan.
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
on their National Science Foundation supported American Indian Film Project. His photographs capture the life and culture of Native Americans from the Kwakiutl
Kwakiutl
The term Kwakiutl, historically applied to the entire Kwakwaka'wakw ethno-linguistic group of originally 28 tribes, comes from one of the Kwakwaka'wakw tribes, the Kwagu'ł or Kwagyeulth, at Fort Rupert, with whom Franz Boas did most of his anthropological work and whose Indian Act Band government...
, Kashaya Pomo
Pomo people
The Pomo people are an indigenous peoples of California. The historic Pomo territory in northern California was large, bordered by the Pacific Coast to the west, extending inland to Clear Lake, and mainly between Cleone and Duncans Point...
, Hupa
Hupa
Hupa, also spelled Hoopa, are a Native American tribe in northwestern California. Their autonym is Natinixwe, also spelled Natinookwa, meaning "People of the Place Where the Trails Return." The majority of the tribe is enrolled in the federally recognized Hoopa Valley Tribe; however, some Hupa are...
, Navajo
Navajo people
The Navajo of the Southwestern United States are the largest single federally recognized tribe of the United States of America. The Navajo Nation has 300,048 enrolled tribal members. The Navajo Nation constitutes an independent governmental body which manages the Navajo Indian reservation in the...
, Blackfoot
Blackfoot
The Blackfoot Confederacy or Niitsítapi is the collective name of three First Nations in Alberta and one Native American tribe in Montana....
and Sioux
Sioux
The Sioux are Native American and First Nations people in North America. The term can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or any of the nation's many language dialects...
.http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1998/10/30/EB86274.DTL&type=printable He filmed a number of award winning films in this series along with the documentaries Pomo Shaman and Sucking Doctor, a Pomo doctoring ceremony considered by anthropologists to be one of the most complete and outstanding films of an aboriginal ceremony made to date.
Art Photography
His fine art photography has been exhibited at the San Francisco Museum of Modern ArtSan Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is a modern art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art and was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th century art...
, the California Palace of the Legion of Honor
California Palace of the Legion of Honor
The California Palace of the Legion of Honor is a fine art museum in San Francisco, California...
, the DeYoung Museum, the Seattle Museum of Art, the Henry Gallery (University of Washington), the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, and the University Art Gallery (Cal State at Chico) among others. His photographs have been selected for the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
, the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, and the Monterey Peninsula Museum of Art.
In a published "Art Scene" review Monterey landscape artist and art critic Rick Deregon wrote: "The special qualities of W.R. Heicks's images come from the simple relationship between the photographer and subject. With no agenda other than to capture the decisive inspirational moment and to illustrate the human parade Mr. Heick's work transcends straight journalism and aspires to an art of nobility and compassion."
Career
William Heick's career in photography began as a naval intelligence photographer during World War Two in the Pacific. After the war he studied photography at California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art InstituteSan Francisco Art Institute
San Francisco Art Institute is a school of higher education in contemporary art with the main campus in the Russian Hill district of San Francisco, California. Its graduate center is in the Dogpatch neighborhood. The private, non-profit institution is accredited by WASC and is a member of the...
) under such notable teachers as Ansel Adams
Ansel Adams
Ansel Easton Adams was an American photographer and environmentalist, best known for his black-and-white photographs of the American West, especially in Yosemite National Park....
and Minor White
Minor White
Minor Martin White was an American photographer born in Minneapolis, Minnesota.White earned a degree in botany with a minor in English from the University of Minnesota in 1933. His first creative efforts were in poetry, as he took five years thereafter to complete a sequence of 100 sonnets while...
. He became lifelong friends with Imogen Cunningham
Imogen Cunningham
Imogen Cunningham was an American photographer known for her photography of botanicals, nudes and industry.-Life and career:...
and Dorothea Lange
Dorothea Lange
Dorothea Lange was an influential American documentary photographer and photojournalist, best known for her Depression-era work for the Farm Security Administration...
and regards these two photographers as the primary influences on his photographic work.
William Heick filmed two documentaries about Pacific Northwest Indian tribes, Blunden Harbour (1951) and Dances of the Kwakiutl
Dances of the Kwakiutl
Dances of the Kwakiutl is a 1951 film directed by William Heick and produced by Robert Gardner. It was distributed by .-References:* Ira Jacknis. Visualizing Kwakwaka'wakw Tradition: The Films of William Heick, 1951-1963, BC STUDIES: The British Columbia Quarterly - A Special Double Issue-Number...
(1951).
W.R. Heick worked through most of the 1950s and 1960s as producer-director, assistant historian and cinematographer for the world wide engineering firm of Bechtel
Bechtel
Bechtel Corporation is the largest engineering company in the United States, ranking as the 5th-largest privately owned company in the U.S...
Corporation. While with Bechtel he wrote and filmed documentaries of their major projects with special emphasis on ethnic and social consideration in remote areas of the Arctic, South America, Africa, Greenland, Europe, The Middle East, Australia, Indonesia and the islands of New Guinea and Bougainville. From 1956 to 1964 Heick was involved with C. Cameron Macauley
C. Cameron Macauley
Charles Cameron Macauley was a photographer, filmmaker and educator noted for his prizewinning still photographs, his ethnographic films and his expertise on historic films and photographs. His career spanned over 75 years....
in the American Indian Film Project, a project to document Native American culture
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
s through film and sound recordings, working closely with Alfred Kroeber and Samuel Barrett
Samuel Barrett
Samuel Alfred Barrett was an anthropologist and linguist who studied Native American peoples. He began his career at UC Berkeley, and received the first doctorate in anthropology from that university's new anthropology program in 1908....
.
William Heick produced two documentaries for the Quakers. Beauty for Ashes documents the Quaker's project to rebuild 40 churches that had been burned by nightriders during Mississippi's racial strife in the turbulent 1960s. Voyage of the Phoenix documents the controversial voyage of the yacht Phoenix
Phoenix of Hiroshima
The Phoenix of Hiroshima was a 50-foot, 30-ton yacht that circumnavigated the globe and was later involved in several famous protest voyages.-Construction and launch:...
, which sailed through the American battle fleet during the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
to deliver medical supplies to North Vietnam when the bombing of that beleaguered country was at its peak.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s W.R. Heick served as cinematographer on three feature films, all for the director/artist Fredric Hobbs
Fredric Hobbs
Fredric Hobbs is an American artist and filmmaker.Fredric Hobbs was born in Philadelphia and is a graduate of Cornell University. After service as an Air Force Officer, Hobbs maintained a studio in Madrid where he attended the Academia de San Fernando de Bellas Artes...
: Troika (1969, co-directed by Gordon Mueller), Alabama's Ghost (1973), and The Godmonster of Indian Flat (1973).
During the mid-1970s, working as an independent producer with Gordon Mueller, W.R. Heick produced the Indonesian Dance Series. This series, funded with grants from Caltex Pacific Indonesia and Pertamina
Pertamina
Pertamina is an Indonesian government-owned corporation which extracts and refines the country's oil and gas reserves. It was created in August 1968 by the merger of Pertamin and Permina...
, documents fourteen traditional dance performances from the islands of Java
Java
Java is an island of Indonesia. With a population of 135 million , it is the world's most populous island, and one of the most densely populated regions in the world. It is home to 60% of Indonesia's population. The Indonesian capital city, Jakarta, is in west Java...
, Bali
Bali
Bali is an Indonesian island located in the westernmost end of the Lesser Sunda Islands, lying between Java to the west and Lombok to the east...
, Sumatra
Sumatra
Sumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 with a population of 50,365,538...
and Kalimantan
Kalimantan
In English, the term Kalimantan refers to the Indonesian portion of the island of Borneo, while in Indonesian, the term "Kalimantan" refers to the whole island of Borneo....
.
W.R. Heick's later films include The Other China, a four-part mini-series filmed on location in Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
in 1988 documenting the social and cultural fabric of Taiwan.
External links
- William Heick
- William Heick photographs on Artnet
- William Heick photographs at M Lee Stone Fine Prints Inc.
- William Heick on the Internet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...
- Javanese Music and Dance films by William Heick
- The BC Studies website displays William Heick's images in its banner.
- The William Heick website provides a biography of William Heick.
- Gualala Arts Center exhibition notes. Retrieved on January 27, 2007. This article was originated based on these exhibition notes, with prior permission from the Gualala Arts Center.
- Heick – Macauley Photo Show, Jan 14th, 2006.
- George Snyder, "Photographer Captures Spirit Of Indian Life," San Francisco Chronicle, Friday, October 30, 1998, p. EB-1.