Lucinda Turner, who worked to combat illicit trade in Indigenous art, has died at 63

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A B.C. artist who worked tirelessly to combat fraudulent Indigenous art has died.

Lucinda Turner, an accomplished artist who had apprenticed and collaborated with Nisg’aa sculptor and totem pole carver Norman Tait, died on Monday. She was 63.

Turner had worked to track and challenge fraudulent Indigenous art, including images and works appropriated without permission on merchandise such as masks, T-shirts, and luggage. She drew attention to the illicit trade and helping Indigenous artists claim their copyright.

In 2017, she started a Facebook group called Fraudulent Native Art Exposed and More that has garnered more than 4,000 members.

Members of the group mourned Turner’s death this week.

Bree Madory, an administrator of the Facebook group, expressed her heartbreak at Turner’s death. 

“This is a huge loss to our community,” she wrote. “She spent thousands of dollars out of her own pocket fighting the theft of (Indigenous art). Lucinda was passionate about education and bringing awareness to fake native art, and although she is no longer with us, her legacy lives on through all of the lives she has touched.”

Of Scottish and British heritage, Turner was born in 1958 and moved to Vancouver in 1976. She studied art at Emily Carr University of Art and Design and sciences at Langara College.

She met Tait in 1989 at the opening of a Vancouver gallery. The pair collaborated on hundreds on carvings and artwork until Tait’s death in 2016, when Turner retired.

One of their earliest commissions was titled Heart of the People, an eagle carving from a 180-kilogram block of laminated alder, hung in the boardroom of the Vancouver Stock Exchange in 1996.

According to Turner’s bio listed at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture in Seattle, Wash., where Turner made a presentation earlier this year, she became involved in exposing fraudulent art after Tait’s death and she discovered his and other artists’ works were being stolen and listed for sale on the internet.

She had sent thousands of letters on behalf of 50 artists to companies using stolen designs to hawk their wares.

B.C. carver Richard Hunt, who had images of his work reproduced without permission, said Turner had done much to draw attention to the illicit trade and had helped many Indigenous artists claim their copyright.

She had lobbied the federal government for greater protection for Indigenous artists, calling for a law, as in the United States, with huge fines for selling Indigenous work that is not genuine.

In the open letter to the federal government, she called for action to tackle misrepresentations on the online market.

chchan@postmedia.com

twitter.com/cherylchan

— with files from The Canadian Press