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- The Donors
The late Francis Reif, bom in Moravia in 1914, worked in the lumber industry in Europe before coming to Canada in 1939. Kathleen (Bundy) Reif, born in the Kootenay region of British Columbia, graduated from MacDonald College (McGill). They met in New Westminster, where both were working, and were married in Vancouver in 1943. An early shared interest in Chinese ivory sculpture was, over the 50 years of their marriage, to expand into other arts of Asia and North America. After retiring from the lumber industry in 1970, Francis Reif formed a company to buy and sell modern and ethnographic art, in which he was active for two decades.
Kay and Francis Reif were attracted to amber as both natural material and artistic medium. Most varieties of amber, from the clear yellow-golds and warm oranges, to root amber�s milky swirls and deep browns, to Baltic amber�s opaque tones, found representation in their collection. Subjects ranged from formal vases and water dishes to fine carvings of animals and figures from religion or legend. Particularly enjoyed were pieces where the artist�s design respected and enhanced the material�s natural variations.
Amber, The Material
Amber is often categorized as a semi-precious stone or gem. However, in actuality, it is entirely organic and was formed over eons by natural forces out of the resin of certain trees, like pine, various conifer trees and some tropical broad-leaved trees. It is quite possible that the resins were originally produced by the tree to defend or to seal itself from insects and diseases or injuries caused by limbs being broken. If the proper conditions exist, the resin hardens and is preserved. The ideal conditions for amberization have the decay-resistant resin preserved in a sediment formed at the bottom of a river or at the edge of a sea or an ocean, which allows for a progressive oxidation and polymerization of the resin. The gravity of amber is only slightly higher than that of water.
Throughout history, amber has been obtained in two different ways by humans. Amber could be washed up and gathered on the banks of rivers or seas, or if it was locked up in layers of earth, the veins of amber could be mined.
There are hundreds of deposits of amber around the world and in places very distant from one another. However, there are only about twenty or so places, which have rich deposits. The largest and best known deposits of amber in the world, and the ones that have been exploited for the longest period of time, are those found along the shores of the Baltic sea in north Europe, where amber can be found in the countries of Poland, Germany,
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