VANCOUVER - When 85-year-old Doris Shadbolt died last week, not only did Vancouver's arts community lose a writer, educator, curator and devoted supporter, but her friends say that her sudden death is also cause for arts patrons across the country to mourn.

"Canada was lucky to have Doris because she was a key figure, I think, in the development of the whole arts scene," said author Edith Iglauer. "Not only in Vancouver but in Canada. She was on all kinds of advisory councils in which she set standards that had to be met." Those standards included raising awareness and changing the perception of art by the Northwest Coast aboriginal peoples. Shadbolt helped shape the view that their creative work was indeed art and not simply items of anthropological interest. Martine Reid, the widow of native artist Bill Reid, said that while Shadbolt was acting director of the Vancouver Art Gallery in 1967, she created a groundbreaking exhibition - The Art of the Raven - that changed how Canadians saw Native art. "This was actually quite a turning point," Reid said. "That experience, of course, deepened our sensibility toward Northwest Coast art."

Born in Preston, Ont. in 1918, Shadbolt studied fine arts at the University of Toronto. She then took jobs at the Art Gallery of Ontario, the National Gallery of Canada and New York's Metropolitan Museum before moving to the Vancouver Art Gallery, where she eventually became associate director. She met and married artist Jack Shadbolt after the Second World War. Shadbolt was an early advocate of Native art and is credited with playing a major role in defining the West Coast's artistic identity, receiving much acclaim with her widely read books on Emily Carr and Bill Reid. In 1999, when former governor general Roméo LeBlanc and the Canada Council for the Arts created the Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts, Shadbolt was one of the inaugural winners, recognized in a category honouring volunteerism, philanthropy, board governance and community outreach activities.

On Dec. 22, Shadbolt suffered a heart attack while on vacation in San Miguel, Mexico.

"All my adult life I have been aware of how fortunate I have been to be engaged, whether gainfully or not, in the varying fields of art," Shadbolt once said. "I do believe that it is the arts which speak to the whole person, that is, to the spirit and the emotions, and to the mind and body alike ... which are the most important components in the formation of culture."

-- CBC News Online with files from Trevor Hughes, The Arts Report