Queen & Spadina (2010) Norval Morrisseau's favourite Toronto Neighborhood

Norval Morrisseau loved this area of Toronto. Here he found great restaurants including Chinatown which prepared Norval's kind of food. Perhaps this neighborhood has always been a little bit chaotic but still it always been an unpretentious, creative and peaceful community where Norval could shop inexpensively, explore chinese medicine and herbs, buy hides from "Skin & Bones" and "Just be". He even lived nearby at both Baldwin and Richmond Streets in the 80's.

I have no idea how Norval would feel about this video of Queen & Spadina on June 27, 2010....but I know how I feel...

Stardreamer

The Merman (1968) Norval Morrisseau

The Merman

Norval Morrisseau

Gouache on paper, 78” x 32”, 1968

Morrisseau, the artist, is a teller of tales. But tales such as these are only as powerful as the power of the person who tells them. Behind the visual imagery lies the power of his personal recital of a legend. Behind the legend lies the personal vision that explains everything. It may be difficult to distinguish Ojibway mythic elements from personal ones, or to separate Indian versions of Catholic iconography from Morrisseau's own set of emblems. He is at his most Indian when he offers an explanation of what he is doing. The purpose of doing it may have been to share with the world a heritage of the Great Ojibway that is proud and full of worth. The reason for doing it is very Indian. Where other artists might claim logic, tradition or authority as justification, Morrisseau always justifies himself by the most Indian of all explanations: the imperative of a personal, unique and private vision, the only real consistency which lies at the back of all his work. Everything, ultimately, is validated by Morrisseau's unanswerable claim to be responding to the demands of that personal, unique and private vision.

Lister Sinclair

Norval Morrisseau remembered (2007) in the Toronto Star

Toronto Star

Year's End Issue - 2007

Toronto Star

Sunday December 9, 2007

Thunderbird & Snake (1965) Norval Morrisseau

Thunderbird & Snake

Norval Morrisseau

Gouache on cardboard, 32” x 43”, 1965

Christ (1974) Norval Morrisseau

Christ

Norval Morrisseau

Oil on masonite, 34” x 27”, 1974

I have always been attracted to religious paintings, but only the ones that had that mystical or supernatural quality in them, especially Saint Teresa by Bernini. Just looking at Saint Teresa I get some kind of vibrations from it. I can close my eyes and feel them. That's great art, and it brings on that tingling sexual feeling. Other saints, like Saint Sebastian, do that as well. But the Christ figure was always the one that was dominant for me.That's why I say that Christ to me is still the greatest shaman, and that is why some religious visions are so complex, and so very hard to explain to people. So whenever you are looking at my pictures, you are looking at my visions, whatever they may be.

Norval Morrisseau

Windigo (1964) Norval Morrisseau

Windigo

Norval Morrisseau

1964, 62" x 32"

When a trader reported rumours of a wendigo killing to a Northwest Mounted Police officer who, in turn, told his superiors, a formal investigation was launched. A patrol was sent out to Sandy Lake and an RCMP constable questioned the local Sucker clan of the area.

The Sucker clan was part of the Anishinaabe nation (the Sucker fish was their totem or doodem). Despite a long history of dealing with traders, the band had little real experience with the Canadian legal system or the RCMP and freely admitted that their "ogema" (a term for shaman or medicine man) had killed a wendigo in the previous year. Zhauwuno-geezhigo-gaubow (more commonly known as Jack Fiddler) had been the medicine man of the Sucker people for decades.

Not only was he their chief negotiator with nearby tribes, but he was legendary for his ability to confront wendigos and protect his people from harm. The incident that brought him to the RCMP's attention occured when his brother's daughter-in-law Wahsakapeequay (wife of his nephew Thomas) became delirious and needed to be restrained. Since delirium was one of the signs of wendigo possession, Jack Fiddler and his brother Pesequan (Joseph Fiddler) strangled her with a cord while others held her down.

The members of the Sucker clan were devastated when the NWMP took Joseph and Jack Fiddler into custody on June 15, 1907. It probably didn't help that none of them spoke English and that the police also ordered the group to abandon their practice of taking multiple wives as well. Both men were taken to the Norway House detachment and the constables became increasingly confused about what should be done with them. The Toronto Globe ran a headline titled "Dark Deeds of Keewatin Indians - They Strangle and Burn Sick Friends" but a senior NWMP superintendent recommended that the entire prosecution be dropped. Not only were both men elderly but Jack Fiddler was in poor health and his condition began to deteriorate in custody.

On September 30, after 15 weeks in custody, Jack Fiddler walked away from the detachment and entered the bush. He was later found dead after he hanged himself in the woods.

Romeo Vitelli

Hunting The Wendigo

Windigo

Norval Morrisseau

22 x 30, ink on paper, c. 1990s

Wikipedia historical information....

When the HBC returned toward the end of the 19th century, they assigned family names to each of the clans. The Pelican clan became the Meekis family after their patriarch Meekis (Shell). The Sucker clan became the Fiddlers and later the Quills). Many members of the Caribou and Sturgeon clans were given the surname Rae, while other Sturgeons were designated Mamakeesic after their patriarch. The Cranes were either Kakegamic or Kakepetum after their leaders, two brothers known by those names. At this time, these names were only used in trading, but they would later become official with census records and are now the most common surnames found in Deer Lake. By 1900, the people of the area were among the last Indigenous peoples in North America living with virtually no colonial influences. Christianity, which by that time had come to most Oji-Cree communities, and Canadian law had almost no influence in the communities. Under Jack Fiddler a powerful ogema (chief and shaman) of the Sucker doodem, the people survived in the traditional way. This, however, began to change.

Jack Fiddler took five wives: Kakakwesic, Nakwasasive, Nocome, Kaopasanakitiyat, and Kayakatopicicikec and had 13 children. Polygamy was common, out of necessity if for no other reason, as young men died often in the dangers of the times.

Like his father before him, Jack Fiddler became a famous shaman for his alleged ability to conjure animals and protect his people from spells. Most importantly to the people of the region, he could allegedly successfully defeat the windigo, a cannibalistic spirit that would possess people during all-too-frequent bouts of famine and disease. In his life, Jack Fiddler claimed to have defeated fourteen windigos. Apparently some were sent against his people by enemy shamans, and others were members of his own band who were taken with an insatiable, incurable desire to eat human flesh. In the latter case, Fiddler was usually asked by family members to kill a very-sick loved one before they turned windigo. In some cases, the "windigo" him or herself would ask to be euthanized according to the necessary rites. Fiddler's own brother, Peter Flett, was killed after turning windigo when the food ran out on a trading expedition.

HBC traders and Cree and white missionaries were well aware of the windigo legend, though they often explained it as mental illness or superstition. Regardless, several incidents of people turning windigo and eating human flesh are documented in the records of the company. Jack Fiddler's reputation also grew, among these groups, and he was approached multiple times by Cree ministers at Island Lake and asked to bring Christianity to his people. Though he respectfully heard their requests, Fiddler did not convert. By the beginning of the 20th century, the Sucker people were among the only Indigenous people in North America living in a traditional manner with almost no white imposition on legal and religious matters.

The arrival of North-West Mounted Police officers in 1906 to arrest Fiddler and his brother Joseph marked the first time most Deer Lakers had ever seen a white person. The elderly Fiddler brothers were charged with murder for killing a windigo (an evil cannibalistic spirit that possesses a person during times of famine) and taken away.

Angus Rae, the eyewitness, testified that Wahsakapeequay was killed while in deep pain and incurably sick according to the custom of the people who were not aware of Canadian law. Pressed on the windigo issue, Rae admitted that it was a belief among his people and that Jack and Joseph were the ones who were usually asked to euthanize the very sick and prevent windigos. Despite some other unreliable testimony from Rae, and the pleas of missionaries and HBC traders, Joseph was convicted and sentenced to death by Aylesworth Perry, the stipendary magistrate.

Most of the descendants of Jack Fiddler live in the Sandy Lake First Nation with others at the Deer Lake First Nation, and North Spirit Lake First Nation in Ontario, and the three reserves at Island Lake in Manitoba

Today the Sandy Lake First Nation is governed by an elected Chief, a Deputy Chief and (8) eight councilors. The current Chief is Adam Fiddler, and the Deputy Chief is Bart Meekis. The Head Councillor is Robert Kakegamic; the other seven Councillors are Bob Linklater, Russell Kakepetum, Harvey Kakegamic, Teri Fiddler, Joe Kakegamic, Frankie Crowe and Sidney Fiddler.

   

The Thunderbird (1970) Norval Morrisseau

The Thunderbird

Norval Morrisseau

Ink and oil on paper, 31” x 23”, 1970

 

Graveyard Scavenger; Devourer of Human Flesh by Rot and Decay (1971) Norval Morrisseau

Graveyard Scavenger

Devourer of Human Flesh by Rot and Decay

Norval Morrisseau

Gouache on paper, 31” x 73”, 1971

...I knew and worked with Norval Morrisseau for many years during his early development and, although impressed with Norval’s early work, I found the Chee Chee painting impressed me the most. Chee Chee will one day be rated in the vanguard of the great Canadian artists. My ambition now is to have an original free flight Chee Chee painting to leave as a legacy to my family.

Robert Lavack

November 30, 2008

 

Journal of Prisoners on Prisons (1990) Cover Art by Norval Morrisseau

Special Issue on Native Peoples

Vol. 2 Number 2 Spring 1990:

Cover Art by Norval Morrisseau

Articles:

• Native American - vs - Anglo Rehabilitation: Contrasting Cultural Perspectives, by Little Rock Reed
• If There is No Justice There is No Peace, by Arthur Solomon
• Sweet Grass in The Iron House, by Danny Homer
• The Nature of Contempt: Letters From Gaol, by C.J Hinke
• Female Political Prisoners and Anti-Imperialist Struggles, by Susan Rosenberg
• Voices That Shall Be Heard, by Dragon Milovanovic

This 1990 "Journal of Prisoners on Prisons" issue was produced the same year as Norval Morrisseau's postage stamp was issued.

While it was a commendable idea, it is highly unlikely that 19 years after Robert Lavack wrote several letters suggesting Norval Morrisseau's work be pictured on a postage stamp that his request was finally realized. In fact there is no evidence to suggest that Mr. Lavack had anything to do with the Morrisseau stamp. The painting reproduced on the 1990 stamp was actually painted in 1973, after Mr. Lavack had fled the country. Nevertheless, fanciful rumours do persist.

 

Frog Medicine Spirit, Owl Land Medicine Spirit gives Humans Curative Powers (1964) Norval Morrisseau

Frog Medicine Spirit,

Owl Land Medicine Spirit gives Humans

Curative Powers

Norval Morrisseau

Gouache on paper, 31” x 47”, 1964

THE ECSTASY OF NORVAL MORRISSEAU

His vibrant work is finally getting the loftiest curatorial attention

My first encounter with fame, even greatness, was at the side door that led out to our garage, when I was about nine years old. I ran to answer a knock one winter evening, but froze before turning the knob when I caught sight of the face peering down at me through the little window: dark and angular, with a narrow mustache, and something about the eyes. I called my father, and he let in the unfamiliar visitor. I learned later that it was Norval Morrisseau, the Ojibway artist, come to talk to my parents about buying his paintings.

This would have been about eight years after Morrisseau's first gallery show in Toronto, in 1962, caused a sensation in the big-city art scene, and three since he had earned even wider popular acclaim for a huge mural executed at Expo 67. Hard drinking had kept him from saving money, so there he was going door-to-door in the bitter cold. Of course, I didn't know any of this then, only that a very tall Indian was an unusual visitor at the home of a white family like ours in the northwestern Ontario gold mining town of Cochenour, on the rocky shore of Red Lake. Probably still is.

Morrisseau didn't stay long that first visit. But he came back on another occasion or two, once memorably decked out in a beaded, fringed jacket. Barefoot after kicking off his boots, he stood on my mother's new green wall-to-wall carpeting, sizing up the beige walls of our living room, talking grandly about the images he would create to be hung on them. He was an impressive salesman and evidently knew he cut quite a figure when he was at his best, that is, when he wasn't drinking. Another memory: playing on a summer day and coming suddenly upon Morrisseau, sprawled asleep with the sun on his face, in the wild grass by the lakeshore, an empty bottle nestled, glinting, under one arm.

My parents bought two paintings, one of a group of loons and the other of a finned creature from Ojibway legend, part human, part fish. Many Canadians would recognize the style now, called the Woodlands School - bold flat colours inside sinewy black borders, and the X-ray view into the spiritual guts of the figures. Morrisseau originated that way of painting, profoundly influencing Native artists across Canada. Yet our owning a couple of his pieces wasn't unusual. Up there in the Red Lake district, where he first painted and peddled his work, his bold acrylics were quite common in ordinary homes. In fact, despite his sustained fame since those early days, enough of his work remains in the area today that a travelling exhibition of locally owned paintings was mounted three years ago by the little Red Lake Museum.

A somewhat bigger show is now in the works, which is what has me thinking about Morrisseau again. The National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa is planning a major retrospective of his paintings for early 2006. It's doubtful Morrisseau will be able to attend the opening: now in his early 70s, he lives in a nursing home in Nanaimo, B.C., suffering from Parkinson's disease, and no longer able to paint. Few living Canadian artists would even be considered for such an exhibition. But for an Aboriginal painter to be singled out for this career-capping treatment is especially remarkable. Until recently, the notion of according a First Nations artist working in a traditional vein the most serious curatorial attention would have been controversial - if it was discussed at all. Morrisseau has been hanging around by the side door of the fine-art establishment for decades. Now, it seems, he is most definitely in.

Not that his huge output hasn't been admired, or acquired, long before now. In fact, the painting of Morrisseau and his followers, along with Inuit sculpture and print-making and the West Coast school largely revived by Bill Reid, are the only homegrown art styles to be widely embraced by Canadians since the Group of Seven caught on in the 1920s. Native art is our national art. Yet contemporary Aboriginal art has often been left to museums of anthropology and archeology - not the halls of fine art. So an elegant silver bear bracelet by the Haida master Charles Edenshaw, or an ambiguous soapstone animal by Inuit minimalist Andy Miki, or, for that matter, a Morrisseau thunderbird, are treasures that have for the most part been considered artifacts of their particular cultures. They're not to be viewed as art in the way the word is used when the object in question is, say, a classic Kreighoff landscape or an edgy contemporary installation piece.

But the era of art segregation may be ending. The upcoming Morrisseau blockbuster is only one sign. Another is a broader policy shift at the National Gallery. For the first time this year, the glass-and-granite institution, a popular stop for thousands of tourists to the capital, is showing Aboriginal work as part of its main Canadian exhibits. The experiment is called Art of this Land, and the juxtapositions it creates are striking. An elaborately painted horsehide by a Sioux artist of the mid-19th century stretches out before a Paul Kane painting of Plains Indians dancing, from the same period - a visual essay in historical perspectives. And then there's the pure aesthetic jolt generated by putting a finely woven Tlingit robe of yellow, blue and natural wool across from a lively David Milne painting of a streetscape that echoes the colours and patterns of the West Coast textile.

Wandering through Art of this Land, the gallery-goer sees two streams of Canadian art converge. Morrisseau must be credited with having brought them closer together. His painting is an indispensable link between the old ways of Aboriginal art and the entry of contemporary Native artists into the world of collectors and critics. His experience is a bridge.

Morrisseau was born in the early 1930s (exact dates vary in different accounts) to a family from Sand Point, a reserve east of Thunder Bay. He was raised there by his devoutly Catholic grandmother, who taught him her faith, and his grandfather, a hunter and trapper who told him the old stories, which Morrisseau recounted vividly in the 1965 collection Legends of My People, the Great Ojibway. (My parents bought the book when I was a kid, and I devoured the strange tales - the ones about human-flesh-eating windigos making a particular impression - with the Morrisseau paintings in the rec room enhancing the experience.)

The clashing religious influences of Morrisseau's grandparents play out in some of his most powerful work as a struggle to reconcile Christian and Ojibway beliefs. He has painted himself as Christ, but also shows men turning into thunderbirds. To see him as caught between two ways - as a stand - in for all conflicted Natives - is too pat. He's an individual artist, not a living allegory. Still, it's impossible to entirely resist viewing his foot-in-both-worlds alienation as emblematic of the reality of First Nations.

His painting career began when he was working in the gold mine in Cochenour, my hometown, in 1959. His earliest art shows him reaching back for images, deep into his grandfather's stories. In that sense, he is a traditionalist. But he is also a revolutionary, reaching outward, trying to figure out how to transmit a message - and sell his work. "He was asking, 'What is it that I need to make myself an artist?' " says Carleton University art historian Ruth Phillips, who has written extensively on Morrisseau.

He found his answers. Dr. Joseph Weinstein, a physician who lived in Cochenour in the late 1950s and early 1960s, bought Morrisseau's paintings and showed him his collection of art books about not only European painting but also Navajo and West Coast Native art, which Morrisseau reportedly seized on for inspiration and ideas. As well, he met Selwyn Dewdney, an author and amateur anthropologist who was travelling through northwestern Ontario cataloguing Native rock painting. Dewdney wrote that he was startled to meet an artist "who actually looked like an artist," and gave advice and encouragement to the young man with the sensitive face and evident talent. Morrisseau was soon taken on by flamboyant Toronto dealer Jack Pollock, who mounted the 1962 show that vaulted him into celebrity.

Since then, the story has often been a sad one. Old newspaper clippings on Morrisseau's life can be sorted into two categories: glowing reviews of his periodic art shows, and sordid accounts of his frequent plunges into public drinking. In this, again, it's hard not to make him an emblematic figure. "People want to see him as a tragic, romantic artist," says Phillips. That's part of it. More precisely, a tragic Indian artist. In his painting, we see the Native heritage most Canadians want to celebrate: mysterious, deep, rooted in our own land, and, in the words of Robert Bringhurst, the British Columbia poet and translator of Haida literature, "our Greek myths." But in Morrisseau's addiction, we see a portrait of the failure that blights both reserve and urban Aboriginals.

I went to visit Morrisseau last summer at his nursing home in Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. A young couple, Gabe and Michele Vadas, who live not far away, are his main link to the world. Morrisseau met Gabe Vadas when they were both hanging out on the streets of Vancouver in 1987. "He was wearing a dirty, tattered blanket and he was very drunk," Vadas recalls. They had coffee at a McDonald's and struck up a friendship. Since then Vadas has acted as a combination of agent, personal assistant and surrogate son. It's an odd relationship, but one that seems to work. Gallery owners who were suspicious at first have accepted Vadas as a stabilizing influence. Morrisseau has painted Gabe and Michele's children with grandfatherly affection.

Vadas takes me to see Morrisseau at the nursing home. He's in a dispute with his massage therapist when we arrive. Parkinson's has robbed him of clear speech, so it's hard to tell exactly what's wrong. While matters are sorted out, I survey his room. Lots of pictures of his family, including grown children back in northern Ontario with whom he has little contact now.(His estranged wife, Harriet, died several years ago.) At his bedside, a coffee-table book of his paintings, a couple more of West Coast Native art, which he has enthusiastically collected, and the paperback Eckankar: Ancient Wisdom for Today, on the new-age religion Morrisseau has followed in recent years. While I take notes, he takes note of me. His familiar eyes look suspicious, if not downright hostile. "It's a ghost from your past," Vadas tells him with a laugh, explaining that I'm from Cochenour. We arrange to meet that afternoon, after Morrisseau has been taken for his daily drive.

And so a few hours later Morrisseau has been helped into a lawn chair in the carport of Vadas's bungalow. There's a breeze that smells of the nearby ocean, a salt tang unknown in the bush country north of Lake Superior. He's got a cup of Starbucks coffee that he drinks through the hole in the lid, raising it slowly to his lips with hands far too shaky to hold a brush. He can manage only a few words at a time. I venture a question about the National Gallery show. "Don't care about that shit," Morrisseau says. When I ask why not, he softens. "Sure. Good idea."

I try a few questions about the old days, but he seems to feel they are barely worth the huge effort it takes to answer. On that first Pollock show, one word: "Excitement." On what drove him to paint in the first place: "Ask God." About his struggles with alcohol, though, he sucks in breath and gasps out his longest reply: "I'd do it all over again. I'd have a better approach. I'd really get drunk." Asked what his happiest memory is, he says without hesitation: "Grandparents." Then he mutters something I take to be about his grandmother's cooking, so I ask what food he remembers best, thinking he might say something about bannock or moose meat. But he smiles and gets out: "Oranges." Of course. The Christmas treat of his generation.

Before an hour has passed the struggle of talking seems to be too much for him. Vadas takes us for a drive in his minivan. We go past handsome houses with good views of the islands off Nanaimo's pretty harbour. Morrisseau gripes a little about the nursing home. He says he needs more money, although his income from art sales appears to be substantial. Vadas asks him what he would buy with it. "Canvas and paper," he says. Such a sad answer. Finally, they drop me off at the dock where I can catch a float plane back to Vancouver. My hands seem small when Morrisseau grips them and manages, "Come back and visit us." But that seems a long shot. By accident I got my look at him in his prime. Now I have sought him out in his old age. From here on, I'll have to be satisfied with looking at his paintings. Thankfully, the opportunities for all of us to do that will be getting a whole lot better.

John Geddes, Jan 26, 2004

www.macleans.ca

Discipline (1978) and Conversation (1978) by Norval Morrisseau

Discipline

Norval Morrisseau

1978

Conversation

Norval Morrisseau

1978

The images of authentic Norval Morrisseau paintings displayed here are from a grouping of about a dozen Morrisseaus that  have been widely published in the public domain. As such they have often been used to aid novice artists in their development and by Morrisseau art forgers in their unlawful activities. Have a look at how Morrisseau art forger Benjamin Morrisseau has been influenced by Norval Morrisseau's artwork, both in his development as an artist and as a forger.

Stardreamer

Psychic Space (1996) Norval Morrisseau

Psychic Space

Norval Morrisseau

96"x168", 1996, acrylic on canvass

Collection of the National Museum of the American Indian

Published in "Travels to the House of Invention" 1997

Virgin Mary with Christ Child and St. John the Baptist (1973) Norval Morrisseau

Virgin Mary with Christ Child and St. John the Baptist

Norval Morrisseau

1973 , 40"x32"

This year, Canada Post Corporation's annual Christmas set features the works of four native Canadian artists. Each one has depicted the nativity or the origin of human life according to their particular cultural beliefs. Jackson Beardy's "Rebirth" (Cree) is seen on the 34¢ GREET MORE stamp. It is a rendering of the beginnings of life and its cycles of existence.

On the 39¢ domestic rate, Norval Morrisseau (Ojibwa) "nativizes" a classic Christian image in his painting "Virgin Mary with Christ Child and St. John the Baptist." The green stone sculpture, "Mother and Child", created by a Cape Dorset Inuit artist (believed to be Lutka Qiatsuk), is featured on the 45¢ U.S. rate design. And the 78¢ international rate stamp uses Bill Reid's serigraph on paper, "Children of the Raven", portraying the first human beings entering the world according to Haida belief. Montreal graphic designer Clermont Malenfant put distinctive backgrounds of metallic colours, textile, blanket or tapestry patterns from each artist's culture together with the artwork and the appropriate translation of the Christmas wish "Peace on Earth".

Canada Post Corporation.

1990.

The Great Migration (1994) Norval Morrisseau

The Great Migration

Norval Morrisseau

1994, Acrylic on canvas, 48 x 96 inches (Diptych)

When the history of the twentieth century art in North America is written, no chapter will be more dramat­ic or significant than that of the Anishnabe painters, the aboriginal people of the Great Canadian Shield.

In the 1950's when it appeared that their culture was on the verge of being extinguished by the onslaught of the "white" civilization, there was a move by several individuals to preserve the ancient oral traditions by recording them in writing and in art. In so doing, the artist's developed a unique style, indigenous, distinctive, graphic, with a rare potential for narrative and an innate primitive beauty.

By the very act of depicting legends, the artists defied cen­turies of taboos, and many interesting sociological events followed: a shift in the roles of shaman /artist/ hunter occurred in the Anishnabe culture; the art became a seminal force in a revitalization movement; and the entire Ojibway Nation, a people heretofore overlooked by the mainstream of history, was thrust suddenly into the spot­light glare of an art-loving public."

Mary E. (Beth) Southcott

Author - The Sound of the Drum: : The Sacred Art of the Anishnabec

  

Androgeny (1983) by Norval Morrisseau in Rideau Hall

Androgyny

Norval Morrisseau

1983

The Office of the Secretary to the Governor General (OSGG) will install a new artwork in the Rideau Hall Ballroom on September 18, 2008. Created by world-renowned Canadian Aboriginal artist Norval Morrisseau, the painting, entitled Androgyny, will replace Charlottetown Revisited, a work created by the Jean Paul Lemieux, which has been on loan from the Confederation Centre of the Arts since 2006.

In Androgyny, Morrisseau represents the Ojibway shaman's world view, showing a thriving and bountiful world in which all the diverse elements are in perfect balance. With its impressive height of 3.66 metres and width of 6.1 metres, its brilliant colours, and the artist's knowledge and understanding of the Ojibway cosmology, this artwork is a true masterpiece. Morrisseau donated this painting to the Canadian people on April 15, 1983. He was awarded the Order of Canada in 1979.

The loan of Androgyny to Rideau Hall is made possible thanks to a partnership with the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, and the Indian and Inuit Art Centre. The piece will be on display until 2011 and will be seen by everyone visiting Rideau Hall.

Press Release

Sept. 17, 2008

Androgeny (1983) by Norval Morrisseau and the Governor General of Canada (2008)

Androgeny

Norval Morrisseau

1983

"Less than one year ago, in December 2007, we lost Norval Morrisseau, one of the most remarkable Canadian painters of the last 50 years. A source of inspiration to generations of artists and of pride for Canadians, his work is celebrated beyond our borders for its singularity and its powerful impact. Morrisseau was a passionate interpreter of the myths and legends of the Obijway nation. In his famous, coloured dreams, he illustrates indigenous stories and gives them new life, and a foundation and relevance in the heart of today’s realities, showing us their undeniable, universal significance.

Last March, when I went to see the National Gallery of Canada exhibition dedicated to the recipients of the Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts, I also went through a gallery with an incredible selection of works by Norval Morrisseau. I was struck by one piece in particular, a striking, luminous and monumental painting of staggering vivacity that Morrisseau donated to the people of Canada in 1983 through the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada’s Indian and Inuit Art Centre.

The title itself, Androgyny, is an invitation to dive into the vision he had of the fusion of beings and elements, the harmony that exists between people, the complementarity of the meeting of civilizations. (Art guides us through the opaqueness of life; this gives it power and makes it essential.) Morrisseau the shaman travels between different worlds to ward off fate and adversity. With Androgyny, he invites us to join the conversation and shows us that when One unites with Other, they become One.

The time has come to return Jean Paul Lemieux’s Charlottetown Revisited to the Confederation Centre of the Arts. It has been on loan to us for two years and I had it installed in the Rideau Hall Ballroom, where we hold ceremonies and public events. It is now Androgyny’s turn to become one of the most visible paintings in the country. It will speak eloquently of our strong ties with the First Nations, those who have our deepest roots in Canada.

Our decision to exhibit this painting takes into account a recommendation made by a participant at the national Art Matters forum held in Banff last April, that is, that we support the capacity of First Nations artists and communities to create, produce, distribute and participate fully and fairly in the arts community. The installation at Rideau Hall of an imposing piece bequeathed to us by one of Canada’s greatest artists speaks loudly of the presence of Aboriginal peoples, of their priceless contribution to our culture, and of the meeting of civilizations so prevalent in our history."

Her Excellency the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean
C.C., C.M.M., C.O.M., C.D., Governor General and Commander-in-Chief of Canada

Traveling Sacred Bear With Inner Spirit (1994) Norval Morrisseau

Traveling Sacred Bear With Inner Spirit

Norval Morrisseau

Acrylic on canvas, 48 x 36, 1994

Danny Beaton on Norval Morrisseau (2008) - Two National Aboriginal Achievement Award Winners

Maestro... Morrisseau

He painted human beings in their journey as a colourful family united with creation and the Spirit World with all the powers of the life forces.

Morrisseau brought Native American culture, our way of life back in all its purity, onto paper and canvas in a way sacred art could be given life with Mother Earth and her children with the hands of it’s Ojibwa son, a Shaman, Copper Thunderbird.

Canada had lost its own son of Woodland Native art, the chief and spirit of North American Native art is Norval Morrisseau. Master, legend and voice of colour, shape, image, even sound came from Norval Morrisseau’s work of cultural respect for the natural world and spirit world.

An Ojibway from Ontario’s own Woodlands, Norval experienced the devastation of his culture first hand, the dominating forces that had eradicated a big part of Ojibway ceremonial life.

This generation of Native peoples have experienced the culture shock especially for the past fifty years, because of this scenario, the spirit brought an intense struggle back to the people in order to survive the phenomena of culture shock and environmental degradation.

No one knew better of resources being extracted from Northern Ontario’s forests, hills, rivers, streams, even animals, fish, birds and human beings. Norval was a communicator for the natural world and spirit world, he was a messenger for Native ancestors, he carried his peoples intense pain and intense joy in a way that was unique. Norval painted our culture and world with awe, splendor, grace, power and beauty. He put the mystery of creation on canvass for the world to experience with their own eyes, he brought us the spirit of the bear in ways only a child, boy, man and elder sees with their inner world and maturity. That inner world of creativity, vision, hope, reality, wisdom, compassion, respect and understanding which only great leaders, teachers, healers and shamans possess.

Over the years, legends have developed around Mr. Morrisseau. According to one story, he became perilously ill at the age of 19. A visit to the doctor did nothing and a Medicine woman was summoned. A renaming ceremony was performed (Anishanaabe tradition holds that giving a powerful name to someone near death can rally strength and save a life).

He was renamed Copper Thunderbird, and recovered. Later, he would use it to sign his paintings.

Master of Woodland Native American art has passed on, leaving a legacy no other artist has left since Pablo Picasso. His ability to bring spirit to canvass obliterated art dealers around the world. His way of orchestrating flowers, birds, animals, fish, insects and reptiles with thin and thick black lines was pioneered by Norval and his ancestors.

His style is unsurpassed and his life if studied was a journey through colonization in which he witnessed corruption, intense pain, sorrow, loss, greed, lies and the degradation of our Sacred Mother Earth.

Norval countered the obvious of his people and home land with a pencil and paintbrush. His art reflected his country and people in their magnificence, he demonstrated a world of healing with nature, and healing with the spirit world, and life of his people, his people being the Ojibway, Algonquin, Huron, Cree, even Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, Seneca, Cayuga and Hopi.

Norval’s work captured the life not only of his own tribe but Native American spirituality with the natural world. He brought life to the spirit world which Picasso could not match.

The genius of Morrisseau was displayed in the stories told by his paintings of Thunder Birds, the Sacred leader of the Winged ones, the Eagle, the Protector of the Ojibway Nation, the Bear, etc. etc. Morrisseau used colour in a way that brought life, awe, mystery and majesticity to our eyes and mind. Norval painted beauty and harmony within the oneness of Native Culture and Mother Earth.

Norval witnessed the rivers, lakes and bush of Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada long enough to be influenced for life to move through his veins, psyche, spirit, mind and completeness.

He maintained his duty as a messenger, runner and worker for Native America for seventy years. Because Native American culture is based on ceremony, Norval was also a historian in the way he captured our world. He also inspired a world of Native artists, many who are now successful thanks to the work he layed down for others to learn from.

One of Norval’s greatest achievements was to quit drinking alcohol for many years. He had suffered alcoholism for many years as many of our people had. He was an example of purification and change. He struggled to be clean which we will honour him for.

America has a legend, Native people have a true artist, a Human Being, an artist of the Ojibwa Nation who will never and should never be forgotten. We should burn tobacco for his spirit as his love for his people and culture has influenced non-Native people with Native Spirituality and power.

Norval helped bring respect to Indian people. Norval painted unity with the environment.

On behalf of all Native Peoples, Elders, Chiefs, Clan Mothers, Medicine people, singers, healers and artists we say, “See you in the spirit world brother.”

We asked the spirit helpers to take away your pain and we thanked the four protectors that protected you on your Sacred Journey, and we ask our great Creator to have pity on us.

Thank you for listening.
All my relations.
Danny Beaton
2008

Visions of Ancient Ancestors (1994) Norval Morrisseau

Visions of Ancient Ancestors

Norval Morrisseau

1994, Acrylic on Canvas, 42 x 62

One may advocate for peace in many different ways as the faces of peace are as varied as the peoples of this earth. Some people use words, some political activism, some peaceful resistance, others work to broker peace or act as iconic images of the meaning of peace. Canada is very proud that native artist Norval Morrisseau took up paintbrushes to provide the world with colourful images depicting the importance of living at peace with oneself and nature. In addition to a significant oeuvre that sends strong messages of peace world wide, Mr. Morrisseau himself serves an an icon of peace.

Mr. Morrisseau is a model of hope and survival for indigenous peoples. He has instilled in them a sense of pride in their heritage and identity. He is the founder of a new artistic way of depicting native legends. A pioneer with his own works, he is the mentor to generations of new artists. Additionally, he has overcome great personal difficulties throughout his life and he bravely continues to face the challenges of ill health. His life is as inspirational as his art.

Mr. Morrisseau's art works hang in public places in Canada and world-wide. He has taken aboriginal art out of a narrow niche and made its powerful messages available to a broad and diverse audience, important messages that would get even more recognition with a Nobel Peace Prize.

Messages such as:

• We are connected to nature and to one another.
• We must live in harmony with nature and one another.
• We must be at peace with ourselves.

Norval Morrisseau's symbolic messages, colourfully rendered, are important not just for our time, but also for any time as he is building peace for himself, his people and for the world from the inside out. Pride in one’s heritage, identity and self will always be great starting points for establishing a peaceful world.

Angie Littlefield

Power Giver (1965) Norval Morrisseau

Power Giver

Norval Morrisseau

1965

Collection of the Glenbow Museum

Frog Medicine (1964, 1966, 1972) Norval Morrisseau

Frog Medicine Spirit,

Owl Land Medicine Spirit gives

Humans Curative Powers

Norval Morrisseau

Gouache on paper, 31” x 47”, 1964

Frog on a Leaf

Norval Morrisseau

Gouache on paper, 25” x 32”, 1966

Frog on a Leaf

Norval Morrisseau

Gouache on paper, 21” x 28”, c. 1972

Human Molecule (1988) Norval Morrisseau

Human Molecule

Norval Morrisseau

1988, acrylic on canvas, 27.5" x 51.5"

"My art reflects my own spiritual personality. Driven from birth by the spirit force within, I have always been convinced that I am a great artist. Only the external and commercial society around me which has caused interruptions and deviations to occur has attempted to dictate to me and establish false values and ideals. The path through this maze has not been easy. Now, thirty-five years later, fortified by my grandfather's spiritual teachings during the first nine years of my life, I make peace with the external world, and I recognize the higher powers of the spirit.

I am a shaman-artist. Traditionally, a shaman's role was to transmit power and the vibrating forces of the spirit through objects known as talismans. In this particular case, a talisman is something that apparently produces effects that are magical and miraculous. My paintings are also icons; that is to say, they are images which help focus on spiritual powers, generated by traditional belief and wisdom. I also regard myself as a kind of spiritual psychologist. I bring together and promote the ultimate harmony of the physical and the spiritual world.

My art speaks and will continue to speak, transcending barriers of nationality, of language and of other forces that may be divisive, fortifying the greatness of the spirit which has always been the foundation of the Great Ojibway."

Norval Morrisseau

1979

Norval Morrisseau and the Coat of Arms of the Canadian Museum of Civilization

Coat of Arms

of the Canadian Museum of Civilization

22 April 1997.

As the national museum of human history, the Canadian Museum of Civilization is committed to fostering in all Canadians a sense of their common identity and their shared past. At the same time, it hopes to promote understanding between the various cultural groups that are part of Canadian society.

Arms: Paly Argent and Azure per fess paly wavy counterchanged overall a representation of the astrolabe of Samuel de Champlain Or.

Crest: A wreath Argent and Azure rising out of a Coronet of Maple Leaves Argent a representation of a copper displaying the Beaver crest of Chief Ninstints of the Haida people framed with a corona of eagle feathers all Proper.

Motto: Multae culturae una patria

Supporters: Dexter a representation of the Inuit underwater spirit Sedna her finger joints producing fish styled by Manasie Akpaliapik; Sinister a representation of the Algonquian Mishipeshu by the name Asticou styled by Norval Morrisseau, both spirits diving into a whirlpool all Proper.

Canadian Museum of Civilization

Commemorates Ojibwa Artist Norval Morrisseau

Gatineau, QC, December 7, 2007 – The Canadian Museum of Civilization expresses its regret at the passing of Ojibwa artist Norval Morrisseau, who died Tuesday in Toronto at the age of 75.

Morrisseau is recognized for his unique and innovative visual vocabulary that gave birth to the Woodland (Anishnabe) art movement in the late 1950s and that continues to serve as an inspiration to many young artists.

One of the most celebrated Canadian Aboriginal artists, his works have been exhibited at the National Gallery of Canada, the Centre Pompidou in Paris and here at the Museum of Civilization, among many other locations.

Lee-Ann Martin, curator of Contemporary Canadian Aboriginal Art at the Museum, is currently President of the Norval Morrisseau Heritage Society, an organization that is researching and developing a catalogue raisonné of all of Morrisseau's paintings, estimated to be between 8,000 and 10,000 works.

"Norval Morrisseau (Copper Thunderbird) was first inspired by the spiritual and physical power of his Ojibwa cultural traditions," stated Ms. Martin. "Over his lifetime, his bold and original interpretations of this artistic landscape inspired all who viewed his art. We will miss him greatly."

Today, the Museum maintains the world's largest public collection of Morrisseau's works, with over 130 pieces reflecting his perception of Ojibwa traditions and modern realities. One of his important large-scale paintings, A Separate Reality, is displayed in the CMC's First Peoples Hall, and many pieces from the collection were featured in the National Gallery of Canada's 2006 Morrisseau retrospective, Norval Morrisseau, Shaman Artist.

Canadian Museum of Civilization

The Great Flood (1979) Norval Morrisseau

The Great Flood

Norval Morrisseau

33.5"x128", 1975

Exhibited at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, France (1989)

The Art of Norval Morrisseau (Pollock) 1979 - page 120

Otter and Other Life Forms (1976) Norval Morrisseau

Otter and Other Life Forms

Norval Morrisseau

c. 1976

This painting was reproduced as a Limited Edition of 41 Serigraphs

Sacred Otters with Children (1990) Norval Morrisseau

Sacred Otters with Children

Norval Morrisseau

1990, 60" x 96", acrylic on canvas

In the early 1990s Norval had me fly out to the West Coast with six Otter pelts for him. He planned to make a ceremonial coat adorned with sea shells. To keep the pelts safe I brought them on the plane with me.... Its amazing how attractive Otter pelts are to flight attendants!

Ritchie

In stark contrast to this elegant authentic painting look at this example of a forged Norval Morrisseau Otter painting recently sold through Waddingtons auctioneers for three times its estimate because it fooled people. Learn more about the artist who painted the Waddingtons forgery.

Norval Morrisseau (1981) To be a Shaman

Answers within Questions...

• What is a Shaman?
• Why does a Shaman artist paint?
• What is Shamanistic Art?
• Why did Norval Morrisseau repudiate the Woodland School?

Below are passages from Scroll Two of the e-book, Woodland Gold, that consider certain possibilities. The fourth question is complex. Why do you think Norval Morrisseau repudiated the Woodland School? Was he justified?

When viewed as a personal or family talisman Shamanistic art empowers while it protects. Traditional pictographic art and birchbark scrolls are two-dimensional symbolic renderings that tell an archetypal story. A powerful alignment takes place in those who know how to interpret the colours and symbols in relation to one another. A vibrational sense of oneness with the archetype itself.

Shamanistic art is a creative response to a fundamental sentient need to maintain health and well-being. Through artistic expression, a Shaman calls into play the triple faculties of imagination, intuition and inspiration in order to commune with Spirit. The Great Spirit in turn extends to the tribe the power to consciously harmonize environmental forces. When appreciating Woodland Art in essence we join the tribe vibrationally, and through that connection discover the power within ourselves.

Shamanistic art primarily focuses on the relationship between the "Creator" and the "Created" using symbols to convey natural truths. Most artworks are two dimensional (pictographic) designs that one does not look into as one would a landscape. They are organic statements of inner harmony. Like ripples cast on still water, all symbols in a Woodland School painting have a relationship with one another.

The Woodland School taps into an instinctual wellspring of inspiration that requires no predisposed understanding to appreciate. Those who appreciate the warmth of pure colours will experience a sense of inner harmony and balance. Those with even a simple appreciation of the subject matter will enjoy a deeper respect for the ab'original' in all people. as well as for the creatures of the environment. To those who can fully interpret the relational symbology, an enhanced revelationary empowerment is received.

Stardreamer

Woodland Gold - Scroll Two