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Michael Shane Bird (June 6, 1941-October 27, 2003) was a professor, researcher, and writer who specialized in fine arts, in particular Canadian folk and fraktur, and film studies. Born in Belle Plaine, Iowa to Arthur Bird and Katherine McHugh, he attained his PhD from the University of Iowa before moving to Waterloo to teach at Renison University College. Bird taught at Renison for 34 years in both fine arts and religious studies, two topics that he also researched and wrote extensively on. He was particularly interested in religious themes in cinema, including the works of Ingmar Bergman, and Canadian folk and fraktur art. He wrote, or co-wrote, some of the first compendiums on folk art and furniture in Canada. He also wrote on fraktur art in the Pennsylvania German style, and on fraktur found in Waterloo region. On top of writing, he curated a number of exhibits in Waterloo and elsewhere on folk and fraktur art. He was closely connected with the Joseph Schneider Haus, where he gave many talks, curated exhibits, and ultimately donated to the bulk of his Canadian folk art collection.
Bird married Joan Welch in 1966 with whom he had two children. In 1979 he married Terry Kobayashi who was a frequent collaborator of his on writing on Canadian folk art, and in collecting the same. In 1992 he married Susan Hyde and in 1994 they adopted a child from China. Bird and Hyde researched and wrote a number of texts including a book on wooden churches of Cape Breton. Bird died of heart failure on October 27, 2003.
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Advertising ephemera, correspondence, research, and articles relating to the publication and review of books written by Michael Bird. These books include “Canadian Country Furniture,” “Hallowed Timbers,” “Art and Interreligious Dialogue,” “Fraktur and Spirituality in Pennsylvania Folk Art,” “Canadian Folk Art: Old Ways in a New Land,” “A Compendium of Canadian Folk Artists,” “Ontario Fraktur: A Pennsylvania-German Folk Tradition in Early Ontario,” “A Splendid Harvest: Germanic Folk and Decorative Art in Canada,” “Folk Treasures of Historic Ontario,” and “Out of the Mainstream: Folk Art in Canada.” There are also reviews by Michael Bird of “The Illuminated Life of Maud Lewis,” “Film and Fiction: The Dynamics of Exchange,” “The Heritage of Upper Canadian Furniture,” “Waterloo Portfolio: Woldemar Neufeld’s Painting and Block-Prints of Waterloo, Ontario,” “Early Ontario Potters: Their Craft and Trade,” “The Stations of the Cross: A Calculated Trap?” and “A Reflection on Fleming’s Painted Furniture of French Canada.”
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Created JB July 2022
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- English