Man seeing visions (1974) Norval Morrisseau and the Morrisseau Family Foundation

Man seeing visions

Norval Morrisseau

Silkscreen, 25” x 20”, 1974

Legal Copyright 2010

The Norval Morrisseau Estate of Gabe & Michele Vadas

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Norval Morrisseau and Gabe Vadas (2006) at the National Gallery opening of Shaman Artist

Gabe Vadas and Norval Morrisseau

addressing those invited to the opening of Shaman Artist

at the National Gallery of Canada in 2006

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Collectors sue gallery over disputed painting

Morrisseau, maybe: Ottawa couple says uncertainty over authenticity of coveted artist's work may cost them dearly; gallery 'stands by the authenticity' of painting

The late Norval Morrisseau, Canada's most celebrated aboriginal artist, was known to be a great painter but a lousy speller. So Mr. and Mrs. Browne of Ottawa were not initially concerned when the Morrisseau painting they bought from Edmonton's Bearclaw Gallery in April 2007 arrived with the following title scrawled on the back: "Grandfather Speaks of Great Ansistrail Warrior."

The painting, supposedly done by Mr. Morrisseau in 1977, is generally known today at the Toronto court house and in various eyebrow-raising websites as Grandfather Speaks of Great Ancestral Warriors. Shortly after paying $25,000 for the 58-inch-by-61-inch neon-coloured painting, the Brownes uncovered some news far more troubling than a spelling mistake.

Mr. Morrisseau himself, according to documents filed in Ontario Superior Court, is alleged to have declared the painting a fake in 2006 in an e-mail to Heffel, an art auction house that was trying to sell Grandfather Speaks on behalf of the painting's then owner, Joseph Otavnik, an Oshawa art collector. These documents say that Heffel then withdrew the painting from the auction.

But is the painting really a fake?

Mr. Morrisseau's word back then, when he was seriously ill with Parkinson's disease, was not accepted as gospel by everyone. So maybe the painting is real, after all. It depends upon whom you want to believe.

The Brownes, who tell their story on a website they created, are not calling the painting a fake but they are concerned about the uncertainty over authenticity and have filed a suit in Ontario Superior Court in Toronto to recover the cost of the artwork from Bearclaw.

"The fact that the painting had been identified by Morrisseau himself as a fake and withdrawn from auction, served to destroy the ... value of the painting to the plaintiff and to any other subsequent purchases," says a statement of claim filed Jan. 15 by Mr. Browne in Ontario Superior Court.

The painting, Mr. Browne told the Citizen, represents "a huge investment for us and the loss of this investment has significant negative implications for us, wiping out a significant portion of our savings."

Bearclaw has yet to file a statement of defence. In an e-mail to the Citizen, Bearclaw director Jackie Bugera declined to comment on the case, except to say: "I remain very confident that we will be successful in defending this claim."

The problems swirling around the Brownes' painting are not unique in the multi-million-dollar Morrisseau art market. More than two years ago, the Norval Morrisseau Heritage Society, a group of six Morrisseau experts from such institutions as the National Gallery of Canada and Canadian Museum of Civilization, issued a statement warning the public about fake Morrisseaus for sale, especially on the Internet.

The exact number of true Morrisseau paintings and the quantity of fakes circulating is difficult to ascertain, at least in part because of the late artist's erratic life. He spent years as a street person, selling works privately rather than through galleries.

The Brownes' case is not the only one before Ontario Superior Court in Toronto. A defamation suit has been launched by five dealers in Morrisseau works against Ritchie "Stardreamer" Sinclair, a self-described Morrisseau "apprentice" who operates a website, www.morrisseau.com, in which more than 1,000 so-called Morrisseau paintings are labelled as fakes.

Some paintings that have appeared on Mr. Sinclair's website have, at times, been listed for sale by the dealers, including Bearclaw in Edmonton. In support of an affidavit filed Jan. 5 in Ontario Superior Court, Mr. Sinclair has filed with the court notarized statements by Mr. Morrisseau sent to four of the five dealers in the last few years of the artist's life listing specific fakes he said they were offering for sale.

The accuracy of Mr. Morrisseau's statements has not been tested in court nor has evidence been submitted to show how the galleries responded to Mr. Morrisseau's complaints. However, one of the five dealers, Joe McLeod of Maslak McLeod Gallery in Toronto, told the Citizen he withdrew from sale all the paintings questioned by Mr. Morrisseau.

The controversies over the Brownes' Grandfather Speaks began in 2006 when the painting, along with some other Morrisseaus owned by Mr. Otavnik, were listed for auction with Heffel.

According to Mr. Sinclair's Jan. 5 affidavit, Mr. Morrisseau and Gabe Vadas, the artist's "adopted" son and business partner, sent an e-mail Sept. 12, 2006 to Heffel declaring the works to be fakes. The affidavit says Heffel subsequently withdrew the art from the auction. The affidavit also says Mr. Otavnik later placed Grandfather Speaks with Bearclaw Gallery. The Brownes saw the painting on Bearclaw's website and bought it. "We were struck by it," said Mr. Browne in an interview.

Bearclaw is an established Edmonton gallery selling First Nations works since 1975. The gallery's roster of stars includes some of the biggest names in aboriginal art, including Daphne Odjig, Alex Janvier and Jane Ash Poitras.

Ms. Bugera has declined to be interviewed. However, before the launch of the Brownes' suit, Ms. Bugera e-mailed a statement to the Citizen in which she said the gallery "stands by the authenticity" of Grandfather Speaks and another Morrisseau painting Mr. Browne and his wife, also known as Julie Witmer, bought there. Both husband and wife hold PhDs and operate an Ottawa consulting business.

"Over the course of selling Norval Morrisseau works over the past 30 years, Drs. Browne and Witmer are the first customers who have ever questioned the authenticity and provenance of our paintings," Ms. Bugera wrote. "As with any other customer, Bearclaw Gallery has treated Drs. Browne and Witmer in a manner not inconsistent with the standards expected of any other fine art gallery in Alberta."

Ms. Bugera said the gallery was initially prepared to exchange Grandfather Speaks upon learning of the Brownes "specific reservations." That position changed after "the great lengths" the Brownes took to express their "dissatisfaction." The prospect of any "exchange or refund" was removed from the table. After the Brownes launched the suit against Bearclaw, Ms. Bugera said she could not comment on a matter before the courts.

The Brownes say they have been unable to find anyone, including art galleries specializing in Morrisseau works or experts at the Norval Morrisseau Heritage Society, willing to sign a document saying the painting is real or a forgery.

The heritage society is trying to assemble a list, or catalogue raisonne, of all true Morrisseau works. In the meantime, the group is refusing, publicly at least, to label what is real and what is fake.

In an interview with the Citizen earlier this month, Mr. Otavnik said he had offered to refund the Brownes their money for Grandfather Speaks. But there was a condition.

"They told me that members of the Norval Morrisseau Heritage Society called it a fake," Mr. Otavnik said. "I said, 'Perfect; put that in writing and I'll refund your money.' They never did."

The Brownes produced no statement in writing from experts, says Mr. Otavnik, "because I could sue those people."

Mr. Otavnik does not accept the statement from Mr. Vadas and Mr. Morrisseau that the painting is a fake. Some people, Mr. Otavnik says, are declaring painting fakes as a way of "controlling the market."

Reached by telephone at his home in Nanaimo, B.C., Mr. Vadas refused to comment on any aspects of the Morrisseau controversies saying he did not want to unleash more "harassment" against him. Mr. Vadas did invite the Citizen to send him written questions. That was done. But, in an e-mail, he declined to answer any of them.

Authenticating Morrisseau paintings has been complicated by the fact the Art Dealers Association of Canada issued a notice March 13, 2007 saying its members would no longer issue "certificates of authenticity" of the artist's paintings and that the Norval Morrisseau Heritage Society is "the sole authority for the authentication of works by Norval Morrisseau." But the society won't issue signed statements either.

So, where are the alleged fakes coming from? Various prominent figures in the Morrisseau art market accuse each other of involvement in the production of forgeries. Then, there are the seemingly wild accusations that organized crime is churning out Morrisseau fakes from "factories" in Thunder Bay, that these "artists" are being paid in illegal drugs and that money-laundering is involved.

The Brownes say they went to the Ottawa police in November with their concerns over the authenticity of Grandfather Speaks and were told not to expect any feedback for three months.

Lawsuits and inflammatory websites abound in the Morrisseau art market. Mr. Otavnik, for example, won an out-of-court settlement against Mr. Vadas for $11,000 after the Heffel intervention in 2006. The settlement, which did not involve the painting eventually purchased by the Brownes, has been interpreted in vastly different ways by the parties involved.

Mr. Otavnik's conversation with the Citizen was peppered with insults directed at many prominent players in the Morrisseau drama. Some of his harshest criticism was directed at the Brownes. He is also no fan of Mr. Sinclair and has launched a suit in Small Claims Court in Whitby seeking damages that he says Mr. Sinclair's website and Kinsman Robinson Gallery in Toronto have done to his business.

Mr. Otavnik is not part of the much larger defamation suit by the five art dealers against Mr. Sinclair, who claims to have worked with Mr. Morrisseau for several years before the artist's death Dec. 4, 2007. However, all five art dealers, in affidavits filed in court, say Mr. Otavnik was the person who first notified them of Mr. Sinclair's website.

A statement of claim filed Dec. 17 in Ontario Superior Court in Toronto by the dealers says Mr. Sinclair's website is "causing real and substantial harm" to their businesses by scaring off customers. The dealers include Joseph McLeod of Maslak McLeod Gallery in Toronto, James White of White Distribution Ltd. of Caledon, Ont., Donna Child of Artworld of Sherway Gallery in Toronto, Sun Nam Kim of Gallery Sunami in Toronto and Jackie Bugera of Bearclaw in Edmonton.

"Sinclair's actions against the plaintiffs have been reckless, vindictive and malicious," the statement of claim says. "Sinclair has made no attempt to examine the paintings in question or to review the plaintiffs' evidence of the authenticity of the paintings. Instead, he has recklessly made bald allegations of fraud based solely on viewing images of the paintings displayed on the Internet. Sinclair has either knowingly posted falsehoods or he has shown a reckless disregard for the truth of his allegations."

The dealers' accusations have not been proven in court and Mr. Sinclair has yet to file a statement of defence. However, in the Jan. 5 affidavit he filed with Ontario Superior Court, Mr. Sinclair discussed his years of working with Mr. Morrisseau in various locations, studying the style and content of his paintings.

"Because of the fact that I am one of the very few people who have worked alongside Norval Morrisseau and I have been trained by him, I am in a unique position to be able to identify methods and aspects of paintings that have been attributed to Norval Morrisseau in order to assess whether they are genuine or not," the affidavit says. "I know things about his brush strokes, his use and choice of paint, his creation of lines, his selection of subject matter and his basic methods, which all serve to distinguish genuine Morrisseau paintings from counterfeits."

Justice Thomas Lederer issued an interim ruling Dec. 8 on the art dealers' request to "close down" Mr. Sinclair`s website. The judge said the website could remain in operation, at least for now, but warnings had to be posted on the site saying that the opinions were solely those of Mr. Sinclair and are the subject of a defamation suit. Mr. Sinclair has complied with that order. The case is scheduled to resume March 17.

Meanwhile, the Brownes' website also contains an image of another supposed Morrisseau painting, Bear and Berries, the couple also bought from Bearclaw. Their research has led them to wonder about the authenticity of that painting as well. Details surrounding Bear and Berries have yet to be posted on the Brownes' website. But stay tuned. This story is far from over.

Paul Gissell

The Ottawa Citizen

January 22, 2009

The Fish (c. 1960) Norval Morrisseau

(Untitled) The Fish

Norval Morrisseau

oil on moose hide stretched on willow, c.1957-1963, 13" x 30"

“I saw a sense of purpose, a direction, and an inner strength. Looking at it from a painting point of view, I found an incredible sense of design, a power of imagery, and a uniqueness. You know, there is a sense of the unique. Obviously, he is one of the few people who have interpreted the legends and myths. But, his images of those demigods, the animal world, the Merman - things of this type were unique to himself, I felt. I felt that I had not seen this before."

Jack Pollock

1974

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Mythical Animals (c. 1960s ) Norval Morrisseau

Mythical Animals

Norval Morrisseau

28” x 19”, acrylic on paper

Untitled

Norval Morrisseau

15” x 21”, acrylic on paper

Untitled

Norval Morrisseau

10"x16"

Untitled

Norval Morrisseau

10"x16"

Power Giver

Norval Morrisseau

1965

Collection of the Glenbow Museum

The studies displayed above bear witness to Morrisseau fundamentals. i.e decisive line, comrehensive balance and vision. All five paintings are simple sketches. The first four images were painted with a heavier brush than the 1965 "Power Giver" sketch which explores a recurring Morrisseau theme.

The first two pieces were sold for thousands of dollars each by Gallery Gevik in Toronto; a primary art dealer of Daphne Odjig's work. I introduced Norval to Philip Gevik in the mid 1980s. Philip bought a few paintings and took us out for Armenian food.

The second two were listed as serigraphs and went for $200 each at Hodgins Auctions.

Stardreamer

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At the Nexus Art Gallery (1981) Norval Morrisseau

Norval Morrisseau

At the Nexus Art Gallery in 1981

I remember Norval asking me, "what do you want me to write?". I said, "I don't know, whatever you want to...". So he laughed and wrote, "To a great pal" and then signed it with flair.

Norval Morrisseau in his Studio in Toronto - 1979

The Nexus gallery was located on the East side of Church Street, near Queen St. in Toronto. This picture shows Norval at work in the basement at the "Nexus Studio" in 1979. The Nexus Gallery was upstairs, with a "production room" in the back, and further still, a table and office of sorts where the Volpe brothers would gather to sip coffee and talk real estate ("or so they told me"). Albert Volpe and his wife, Violette, were kind, soft-spoken people. Norval respected Albert and Violette immensely.

The Volpe period of Morrisseau art representation through Nexus Art was, in my opinion, a high point in Morrisseau's career. Jack Pollack longed for Norval to produce more traditional, subdued art to accommodate Jack's existing clients who were quite attached to Morrisseau's early era work. Jack wanted smaller, simpler pieces... and only originals. Norval wanted to explore and expand.

With Albert Volpe's business acumen (i.e. connections) and gentle manner, new doors of opportunity opened for Norval. His original paintings from this period are powerful, electrically charged pieces, often with profound subject matter. The mural, "A Separate Reality", found at Ottawa's Museum of Civilization is a prime example. Nexus Art also assisted in producing the Morrisseau "Four Seasons" limited edition plates and multiple handmade rag paper "limited edition" prints that are the absolute best in terms of quality.

Under the name, ALVO Indian Art (ALVO is an acronym for Albert Volpe) a well oiled and organized print production operation went into full swing. Most of the prints produced went to Europe however, along with a number of paintings on paper similar to the one pictured in this 1981 poster.

A "Nexus" is a place where it all comes together. A time when everything connects. Little did I know that I was witnessing a unique Nexus in art history. Underpinning the climax of the Pollock era and the emerging Volpe era was the founding of Norval's "Thunderbird School of Shamanistic Art", that I have been privileged and blessed to be a part of.

Film and articles portray Norval Morrisseau's "nebulous" 1980s as something of a disaster. Nine years without a solo show, trapped by mobster, Albert Volpe, living anywhere and everywhere on the streets, dusted in cocaine, desparately poor and lost to alcoholism. Are these stories true?

What a bizarre web we weave when our sordid fantasies of Morrisseau's woe in the gutters of life become "his stories"(history). Norval's 1980's history has been told by people that don't have a clue. His 1980s history is rife with embellishments and simplistic assumptions.

Morrisseau was his own man in the 1980s. He ran his show. Not Volpe, Pollock or anyone else. He stopped or started drinking at will. No institution came to his aid. His mission was as experiential as it was spiritual - and he knew it. To know Norval you had to know that he was on a mission for God. He believed it and he lived it. He was profoundly moral, though few may agree with me. He advocated against cocaine or any medically produced drug. In fact, he was an alternative health advocate well before it was fashionable.

Much of Morrisseau's history has been coloured by the story tellers themselves. I hear Pollock's, Helmy's, Lavack's, Nagy's and Volpe's history portrayed as if it were Norval's history. I see the myth of the powerless "Indian" played out as if it were Norval's personal story. He let them do it. What did he care? It was all just an illusion.

Yes, the 1980s is a nomadic period that has been difficult for the artworld to understand. Norval was a maestro of both his art and his life in the 1980s. The authentic story is far more interesting than the one they've been handing you. Morrisseau had a 1980's history. He just wasn't sharing it with a "dealer".

If anything I would call the 1980s "The Morrisseau Years". He owned them. Morrisseau's many masterpieces produced in the 1980s are an undeniable record attesting to it.

Stardreamer

Adapted from a 2009 article from

 Morrisseau.blogspot.com

The Sun, the Bird and the Fish (c.1960) Norval Morrisseau

(Untitled) The Sun, the Bird and the Fish

Norval Morrisseau

 oil on moose hide stretched on willow, c.1957-1963, 26" x 13"

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.

Norval Morrisseau

Erotic Sculpturing (1982) Norval Morrisseau

(Untitled) Erotic Sculpturing

Norval Morrisseau

1982, acrylic on canvass, 28" x 40"

Two essays on erotic painting and carving, "Norval Morrisseau and the Erotic" and "Inuit Men, Erotic Art," have a hard time competing with the images printed alongside their written analyses -- not just because sexual pictures trump academic writing but because so few such images of indigenous art have ever been published.

Heid Erdrich

Excerpt from "All my relations - and then some".

Star Tribune

May 23, 2008

Jack Pollock at the Kinsmen Robinson Gallery (1991) Norval Morrisseau Art Exhibition

Jack Pollock

at the Norval Morrisseau Exhibition

held at the Kinsmen Robinson Gallery - circa 1991

More magical Morrisseaus

For most artists, making art is a quiet, gentle pursuit. But for Norval Morrisseau it's a matter of life and death. Always has been.

When he began painting the sacred legends of the Ojibway in the early 1960s, he found himself up against tribal shaman aghast at his effrontery. The stories Morrisseau depicted were forbidden territory; anyone who broke the rule had to pay the price.

But Morrisseau's magic was stronger than his rivals and three decades later, he's not just alive, but creatively well. He has finished painting his next solo exhibition, which will open this Saturday at the Kinsman Robinson Galleries, 14 Hazelton Ave.

Christopher Hume

Toronto Star

Sep 24, 1997

At the McMichael Collection (1997) Norval Morrisseau

Norval Morrisseau at the McMichael Collection

Norval Morrisseau explores an exhibition in his honour accompanied by Ritchie Sinclair, Robert and Signe McMichael, Don Robinson, Gabe Vadas and others at the McMichael Canadian Collection on Sept. 28 1997. Outside on the grounds of the McMichael Canadian Collection Sinclair, Vadas and Morrisseau prepare for the Ceremony. Norval Morrisseau introduces the Bear Dance Shamanic Initiation ceremony that he intends to preform.

What we are about to do is an ancient Indian Bear Ceremony...an earth renewal ceremony. The Grand Shaman is now in...This is a secret society eh...We are allowing who is ever around looking... to look. Now what we are going to do is the Shaman...the Grand Shaman...with his assistant Shaman is bringing the Bear...who is the Initiate...He's not a human...he's a Bear. It won't be too long or too short....So be it

Norval Morrisseau

1997

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The McMichael Collection was begun in the 1950's when Signe and Robert McMichael bought their first painting by a member of the group, Lawren Harris's ''Montreal River, Algoma.'' Mr. McMichael was a young Toronto businessman, and it took them five months to pay off the painting at $50 a month. The McMichaels began collecting seriously as they prospered; they built a log and stone house to live in, and hung the art there. In 1965 the McMichaels gave the province of Ontario their house, land and collection that then numbered about 175 paintings.

The province has expanded both the collection and the building. There are now about 20 paintings by Emily Carr, a West Coast artist (1871-1945) who painted in the group's tradition and was influenced by them. Like Harris, she painted to capture the spirit in the land, and her paintings in the collection bear an uncanny resemblance to his, in their mystical portrayal of nature. Carr was inspired by the Indians of the north Pacific Coast; in keeping with that link the collection now includes a small but fine selection of Northwest Coast Indian masks and a tall totem pole.

In northern Ontario a new kind of painting developed: Woodland Indian painting, which was fathered by the Ojibwa Norval Morrisseau, is the contemporary Indian answer to the pictographic tradition of their ancestors. This new style of painting uses flat, brightly colored shapes outlined in bold black lines to portray apparently transparent beings whose history and relationships are made clear through what's inside them or connected to them by the bold black lines.

In the big room that was the McMichaels' living room A. Y. Jackson used to sit and sketch by the window. He lived there from 1968 until 1974; the room that is now the little theater was his swimming pool. He was artist in residence and he brought to the McMichael Collection the spirit it deserved, the vision of the northern light.

Excerpt from "Painting the Wilderness"

by Joanne Ketes

NY Times

December 14, 1986

Sacred Beaver with Circles of Life (1989) Norval Morrisseau

Sacred Beaver with Circles of Life

Norval Morrisseau

acrylic on canvas, 48" x 30", 1989

Norval Morrisseau at the Art Emporium

From the Art Emporium in Vancouver (1989)

to the National Gallery in Ottawa (2006)

Bryant Ross, Gabe Vadas and Norval Morrisseau

Making a mark over 17 years.

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A few months visit with his long estranged relatives in Sandy Lake and Thunder Bay in 2002 led to Norval Morrisseau, Canada's greatest artist, flogging "work" at the local flea market for next to nothing to support them. That was until he quietly flew the coop back home to B.C.

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Art at the heart of family quarrel

An ugly public rift has developed between two groups seeking to protect the legacy of Nanaimo-based Norval Morrisseau, one of Canada's most celebrated living painters.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars are at stake in the dispute between the Morrisseau Family Foundation, announced last month by Morrisseau's son, Christian, and the Norval Morrisseau Heritage Society, a group of academics endorsed by Morrisseau's adopted son, Gabe Vadas.

At issue: which organization is arbiter of the works created by Morrisseau, an Ojibway artist whose paintings sell for as much as $100,000.

As prices for Morrisseau's works rise, so do the number of forgeries in the market. They are a concern not only because of fraud, but because a flood of fake paintings devalues the true works of an artist and diminishes the amount of money he receives for his work.

Morrisseau, 75, cannot speak clearly because he has advanced Parkinson's disease. But he has signed a public statement dissociating himself from the Morrisseau Family Foundation.

A spokesman for the foundation could not be reached. On Sept. 15, Morrisseau's son, Christian, also an artist, announced its creation, saying it would "serve to carry on Morrisseau family artistic traditions and to protect and nourish the Morrisseau family legacy." In a press release, Christian also said the foundation will authenticate works by Morrisseau.

But Vadas says the only official group looking into Morrisseau's art is the Norval Morrisseau Heritage Society. The committee of art experts came together two years ago to create a catalogue raisonné -- a comprehensive catalogue of all Morrisseau's artworks, including provenance, size and condition.

Last year Morrisseau became the first aboriginal artist to have a solo exhibition at the National Gallery of Canada.

Vancouver Province

October 28, 2007

Two fighting moose (1964) Norval Morrisseau

Two fighting moose

Norval Morrisseau

Gouache on cardboard, 31” x 76”, 1964

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Artist with Parkinson's rails against fakers

who'd steal his life's work

Canada's greatest artist has rolled into town. He is house-hunting. He is here to kick some ass. Don't let the wheelchair fool you.

"A good swift kick" Norval Morrisseau says as best he can through the grip of Parkinson's. Morrisseau, 76, aka Copper Thunderbird, aka Shaman Artist, wants what's coming to him. He wants his money. He wants his reputation back. He wants to send the frauds and fakers packing. The "bad guys." Now should be his zenith, up there with the Group of Seven. Abroad, he is as famed as Tom Thomson. The Woodlands style of native art, dramatic x-ray animals, shamans and spirits, is his baby. He invented the genre.

A tour of his work landed at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian in New York last week. A play about his life debuted at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa in May. The Order of Canada is among his titles, and he has a startling number of honorary degrees for a guy with Grade 4. So, what's he got to complain about, you ask? Plenty. I stumble upon him in Yorkville, outside Marcello Tarantino men's shop.

Gabe Vadas, 41, is pushing his wheelchair. Gabe is the shaman's apprentice. They met in downtown Vancouver in 1987. Both were rock-bottom. Evil spirits -- booze, dope, shady patrons -- had pursued Morrisseau after his early success in Toronto in the 1960s. For years, a drawing was worth the price of a bottle. Gabe wasn't doing much better. One day, slouched in an alcove near Joe Fortes Seafood and Chop House off Robson St., he looked up and saw a giant wrapped in an old blanket. "At first I thought he was a priest," Vadas tells me. "Then I realized, no, this was a man who was really drunk." They had coffee at McDonald's, then dragged each other out of the gutter.

Until this move to Toronto, Morrisseau, who has seven kids, has lived mostly with Vadas and his wife in Nanaimo, B.C. "Gabe saved Norval's life," says Aaron Milrad, a high-powered Bay Street lawyer helping to fight the bad guys.  "In the process, he saved his own life." And Morrisseau's career, until Parkinson's began its cruel work in 1995. Now, Gabe is surrogate son, caregiver, friend and manager.

The latter is no cakewalk. In art, as in life, you pay the piper. In his fuzzy, party years, the great artist did not always hang with warm and fuzzy people.

Some saw easy gold in the man from Sandy Point Ojibwa reserve near Thunder Bay. Who painted what? Who signed what? Who the hell knows?

Which brings us to the fakes. Vadas says they are still being churned out.

Says Milrad: "Not only do they hurt Norval's market, they hurt his ultimate reputation ..."That we cannot allow. He's the most original artist Canada has ever produced."

The "bad guys" are a moving target. Who are they? The Morrisseau camp, if they know for sure, won't say. But letters have gone to dealers and auctioneers urging caution.

The mess has kept prices remarkably low, considering. Major works that Gabe thinks should fetch $100,000 go for a quarter of that. Smaller paintings are much cheaper.

A committee is trying to catalogue true Morrisseau works. Vadas is setting up an appraisal service of his own, part of the reclamation project now unfurling in Toronto.

The lawyers also will chase royalties for prints, books and other merchandise. Milrad had to curb a company making curtains in Morrisseau patterns.

This week, shaman and apprentice are looking for a home here, a base for the campaign, which includes marketing. There is, for instance, a line of clothing. What? Norval Morrisseau, the brand? "You may not like the idea," says Vadas, "but if we don't do it, someone else will. Someone will capitalize." So, Marcello Tarantino has produced silk ties, scarves, robes, baseball caps and Ts emblazoned with Morrisseau art. In the photo, Morrisseau wears a shirt from the line.

Laboriously, he tells me a tale of a turtle and a bullfrog who meet at a bridge. Neither yields. Both jump in the river. Perhaps he means he will not yield to the "bad guys."

"We have to do something about this," says Vadas. "We have to kick some booty, if not for Canada, then for the man." 

Before the shoot, Morrisseau doodles, the best he can. When Norval Morrisseau doodles, you perk up. It is his signature in native symbols. As drawn by an artist with Parkinson's.

It is shaky, uneven, a little sad. But it is real.

Mike Strobel

Toronto Sun

October 24, 2007

Time Track / Causal Plane (1990) Norval Morrisseau

The R.E. Mansfield Collection, 949 works in all, was divided between the University of Oklahoma's Fred Jones and the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian.

Time Track / Causal Plane

Norval Morrisseau

1990, acrylic on canvas, 36" x 30"

Gift of Dr. and Mrs. R.E. Mansfield, 2003 (Probably acquired in White Rock B.C.)

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OU MUSEUM OF ART RECEIVES NATIVE AMERICAN TREASURES

The Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art has acquired another major collection - 476 works by some of the world's most celebrated Native American artists. The R.E. Mansfield Collection, 949 works in all, was divided between the University of Oklahoma's Fred Jones and the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. The gift, which includes ceramics, paintings, beadwork, sculpture and textiles, will augment the OU museum's already strong collection of Native American art.

The terms of the gift were unusual. R.E. Mansfield stipulated that it was his desire to see his collection divided evenly between the two museums he felt would be in the best interests of his Native American masterpieces. Mansfield chose the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian and the University of Oklahoma's Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art. The task of amicably dividing the nearly 1,000 works was left to the directors and staff of each museum.

 After negotiations, Eric Lee, director of the Fred Jones and Bruce Bernstein, chief curator of the Smithsonian's N.M.A.I. decided the only fair thing to do was to lay out the entire collection in one place and take turns selecting the pieces one at a time. Since the collection already was at the Fred Jones, the selection process took place on the OU campus in Norman.

 "The selection process was exhilarating," said Lee. "The Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, which opens its new building on the Mall in Washington in September, has one of the leading collections of Native American art in the world and Bruce Bernstein is one of the nation's leading authorities. We were under a lot of pressure, but I am thrilled with the result. We are also very grateful to Mr. Mansfield for the gift of this incredible collection."

 Lee said that one of the great strengths of the Mansfield Collection is the ceramics. He said the collection has stunning examples of all the major potters of the Southwest, including dozens by historic figures like Maria Martinez and Margaret Tafoya.

"We now have an extremely strong collection of Marias," said Lee. "We also are much stronger in contemporary Native American painters with the addition of major works by such as artists Norval Morrisseau and Emmi Whitehorse." Lee said the Mansfield Collection is impressive in both quality and range of media. "We have beadwork by Marcus Amerman and also quite a bit of prehistoric material, as well as historic pots from the late 19th and early 20th century," he said. "We now have additional weavings from the 19th century and have filled the gaps in our collection, like Native American art from the Pacific Northwest."

 The Fred Jones is undergoing a $14-million renovation and construction project, designed by Washington, D. C. architect Hugh Newell Jacobson. The Mary and Howard Lester Wing will double the size of the existing facility and provide much needed gallery space for the museum's permanent collection, including the Weitzenhoffer Collection of French Impressionism. When the museum reopens in fall 2004, Native American art will have a permanent place in the renovated galleries.

Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art

December 17, 2004

Dr. Mansfield was an American citizen who was a dedicated collector of Native American art. He considered Norval Morrisseau to be the greatest Indian artist on the continent. His donated collection of almost 1000 works of North American Indian art and pottery included quality authentic Morrisseau paintings and prints along with several "questionable" Morrisseau paintings.

The two American Museums split their take on one day and then went back to the business of educating the World about Indians and their Art.

Purported Morrisseau artwork acquired by the Fred Jones Jr. Museum and the Smithsonian from Dr. and Mrs. R.E. Mansfield in 2003 that in my studied opinion are forged pieces include

Storyteller of the Ages , dated 1980 - Fred Jones Jr. Museum

Early Shaman, dated 1973 - The Smithsonian

Lily of the Mohawk, dated 1979 - The Smithsonian

Mother To All Things, dated 1980 - The Smithsonian

The Wanderers, dated 1985 - The Smithsonian (On tour in Australia)

Authentic Morrisseaus donated by Dr. and Mrs. R.E. Mansfield include

Time Track / Causal Plane , date created 1990 - Fred Jones Jr. Museum

Psychic Space, date created 1996 - The Smithsonian

Meeting with Thunderbird, date created 1994 - The Smithsonian

Together We are All One Spirit, date created 1992 - The Smithsonian

Stardreamer

View "Lily of the Mohawk" authentic and forged Morrisseau paintings side-by-side

To the Land of Myth (1990) Norval Morrisseau

To the Land of Myth

"Journeys with the Shaman, grandson and bear entity to the Land of Myth"

Norval Morrisseau

57" x 34", acrylic on canvas, 1990

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Norval Morrisseau found a Paris salon

 in the boreal forest

Remembering the Ojibway painter's early start in the mining town of Cochenour, Ont.

One of the most unlikely and fruitful encounters in Canadian art history took place just up the hill from the street I grew up on in Cochenour, a lakeside mining town in northwestern Ontario. It happened in 1957 or 1958, before my time, in the doctor’s house, just across from the post office. The town doctor at that time was Joseph Weinstein, who, along with his wife, Esther, had only a few years earlier been living in Paris, where they hung out with leading avant-garde artists, writers, and intellectuals. Joseph painted abstracts and Esther had studied languages at the Sorbonne.

But it was in Cochenour, a long way from Montparnasse, that the couple made a lasting contribution to art. There they met a young Ojibway man named Norval Morrisseau who was struggling to become a painter. Esther saw something arresting in his early efforts. They helped him. As art historian Ruth Phillips recounts in her catalogue essay for last year’s National Gallery of Canada exhibition Norval Morrisseau: Shaman Artist, the Weinsteins gave Morrisseau high-quality artist’s paper and paints, and some pointers on technique. Perhaps more importantly, they invited him to pore over the collection of art books they had brought with them to the little doctor’s house, exposing his hungry eye to ancient and modern paintings, and, intriguingly, to other indigenous art.

What an intersection: Morrisseau steeped in his grandfather’s tales from Ojibway legend, the Weinsteins in the European art tradition. There were to be many other chapters, of course, in the Morrisseau saga, which ended this week with the grand old painter’s death at 76. But I’ve been thinking about his good fortune in that initial real exposure to the world of art that he was desperate to conquer. Far too often, to my mind, discussion of First Nations art concentrates on themes of racism and paternalism. It’s worth remembering, as we consider Morrisseau’s remarkable career and substantial legacy, that his first important and formative experience with white people who cared deeply about art was apparently entirely sympathetic without being, by the accounts I’ve heard and read, at all condescending.

Lucky Morrisseau. Lucky Weinsteins. The greatest nascent artistic talent on the Canadian Shield finds his way into the only Paris-influenced salon in the entire boreal forest—what were the odds? But unique as their relationship was, the pattern it represents is not so unusual. The repeated cross-pollination of Aboriginal and Western art traditions was one of the most important elements in 20th-century cultural history in Canada. And it was not a matter of exploitation, at least not in the case of Morrisseau or the other First Nations art success stories that rank with his, notably the way Inuit and West Coast styles worked their way into our popular conception of a Canadian visual art heritage.

Consider the way Inuit sculpture and then prints became ubiquitous. James Houston shows up in Inukjuak with his sketch books in 1948, not long away from painting live models in art classes in London and Paris. Within days, a small carving of a caribou is pressed into his hand. And that leads to him becoming a sort impresario for Inuit art, encouraging the carvers to make bigger sculptures and getting the finished product to big-city galleries down south. Later he brings Japanese print-making technique to Cape Dorset. We’re so used to them now that it’s hard to recapture the proper sense of amazement at the way it all worked out: a white guy shows Inuit artists how to use Asian methods, and the outcome seems perfectly natural—and eminently marketable.

Then there’s Bill Reid. He didn’t know anything about his First Nations heritage until he was a teenager(his mother was Haida). He trained in the very European tradition of jewellery-making and engraving. Yet his personal discovery and exploration of his Aboriginal side led directly to a Haida art renaissance and our national recovery of that incomparably rich patrimony. Robert Bringhurst, an American-born poet and translator, has brought us great literature to go with Reid’s memorable sculpture, through his acclaimed translations of Haida mythic poetry.

These stories all have their own texture and details, but they share something crucial, and somewhat controversial among those who believe majorities can only oppress minorities. In all these cases, the dominant stream of Western art, through the agency of inspired individuals who live by its values, found ways to see Aboriginal art, revere it, absorb it, and help transmit its essence to a very wide and receptive audience. We love the sinewy black lines and flat fields of colour in Morrisseau’s Woodlands school, the accessible Arctic images of Inuit prints and sculpture, the elegant form lines of Haida image-making. We also, it must be admitted, snap up Eskimo kitsch, third-rate Morrisseau rip-offs, and plastic Made-in-China totem poles.

But on Morrisseau’s death, I’m resolved to leave the evident shortcomings in the way First Nations art has been turned into our national art for another day’s reflection. And I’m going to try not to dwell unduly on the stories about curators who belittled his paintings or relegated them to museums of anthropology, rather than their proper place in galleries of fine art. Instead,

I’m imagining him as a tall young man in the home of the Weinsteins, with all those art books around him, and all his own great art still to come.

John Geddes

Dec 5, 2007

Healing (c. 1990s) Norval Morrisseau - Jack Pollock Stories (1966 to 1994)

Healing

Norval Morrisseau

Ink on rag paper, c. 1990s

- Painter finds art in sickroom -

Jack Pollock's Sunnybrook Collection

Ottawa Citizen - March 6 1982

Now freed from the responsibilities of his own gallery Pollock intends to paint seriously for the next 20 years. He also would like to do a television program about art, aimed at viewers with no previous background. Pollock, who was clinically dead for two days after his operation makes a good case for "Art Is Life".

Nancy Baele

Excerpt from the Ottawa Citizen article

AIDS sufferer helps patients

add color to walls of Sunnybrook

The mural isn't all that Pollock has done for Sunnybrook. In 1982, when he was a patient in the same ward, there was no VCR. So he did a painting and had tickets made up; the patients sold the tickets to doctors and nurses. Enough money was raised to buy a VCR.

Born in Toronto, Pollock has lots of memories. He opened his first gallery in 1960 and was a fixture on the Toronto art scene in the late '50s and '60s. He has discovered dozens of artists, including native genius Norval Morrisseau, gave artists like Ken Danby and Charles Pachter their first showings, and has held exhibitions by the likes of Andy Warhol, William de Kooning and David Hockney.

Stasia Evasuk

Excerpt from an article in Toronto Star

Jul 7, 1990

  

 Unnatural fear tackled at seminar

Jack Pollock is infected with the HIV virus that causes AIDS and told a seminar at the Addiction Research Foundation marking AIDS Awareness Week in Ontario, that people coping with AIDS are looking for assistance that doesn't take away their dignity, nor their judgment. Awareness week was marked Oct. 15 to 19.

Thirty per cent of the doctors and dentists in Toronto won't treat HIV patients, "and it's not because they fear contact with an AIDS patient, but they're afraid their other patients will learn about the AIDS patient and not return to the doctor," Pollock said.

Pat Brennan

Excerpt from an article in Toronto Star

Oct 27, 1990

Pollock dies at 62 of AIDS-related illness

Perhaps his most famous discovery was native painter Norval Morrisseau. [Jack Pollock] was teaching art in Northern Ontario in 1962 when Morrisseau - who painted on birch bark - came into his class. After Morrisseau demanded $5 for each of his paintings, he agreed to let Pollock exhibit them and the show made more than $3,000.

Exerpt from the Kitchener - Waterloo Record

Dec 12, 1992

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Jack Pollock keeps wild eye on art

Ottawa Citizen - Apr 14, 1978

Canada needs more Jack Pollocks. It needs erratic adventuresome investors in our future. Pollock has taken chances in art when he couldn't afford to. Luckily the rest of the art community soon caught up.

Kathleen Walker

Ottawa Citizen arts Editor

Canada's Art Book of the Year

Ottawa Citizen, Dec 11, 1979

French Edition

Montreal Gazette

Nov 21, 1981

Jack Pollock

NOT EVEN death has diminished Jack Pollock's ability to attract attention. The flamboyant art dealer and painter died late in 1992 after a career that alternated between great success and abject failure. Tomorrow at 3 p.m., CBC-TV will broadcast a half-hour portrait of the late Pollock as part of its Canadian Reflections series.

Christopher Hume

Toronto Star

Feb 03, 1994

BACKSTAGE and ROXANNE

TELFORD FENTON (1932-2004)

Oil on Canvas - Dated 1980

 

 

Along with Norval, Jack Pollock also represented other noteworthy, flamboyant artists, including Telford Fenton. Telford was uniquely positioned in the Toronto art scene. He would fall into a psychic trance at a certain point in a project in order to create a portrait of both the subject and their aura. The images above are of Telford's art circa 1980.

Telford was apparently a big "fan" of Norval. One night Jack appeared with a stretched 48" by 72" life-size portrait of Norval, channeled by Telford, who then gave it to Jack to give to Norval as a gift. Jack passionately told us his story of the incredible experience Telford had in creating this special portrait for Norval and of how significant and innovative Telford was as an artist.

Norval politely accepted Telford's gift, expertly "sold" to him by Jack. I can vividly recall the jovial spirit of the evening. Norval razzing Jack. Jack charming Norval. Two storytellers doing their thing while this strange, impressionistic painting of Norval's head floats before us in a netherworld of off-key colours, loaded thick with oil paint.

The next day Telford's painting sat out, front and centre, staring at us. Norval began to make fun of it. Another day went by with a few more Jokes and remarks about the psychic artist. Soon repeating Jack's accolades about Telford became Norval's favourite pastime. I won't repeat some of the things he was saying. Suffice it to say he didn't like his wonky head emerging out of a toxic soup. After a week Norval decided that he was going to "fix it up a bit".

Over the course of a few more days, little by little, "fixing it up a bit" became the whole painting, with the exception of his head. Norval fixed it up with acrylics, so he was left with an oil painting of a "head" surrounded by acrylic paint. It looked bizarre.

Then Jack showed up again.

Norval actually tried to hide the painting when he realized that Jack might see it, but it didn't work. When Jack saw Telford's painting he was aghast! He said that the painting was worth $10,000 and that Telford would be heart-broken. He said no artist was ever permitted to touch another artist's work! It was beyond comprehension. Norval just grumbled about vomit and psychics.

Norval kept his gift from Telford Fenton and eventually cut his head out of the canvass and threw out the rest. Every once in a while I'd see it appear here, in a bathroom, or there, in a kitchen. An oval cut-out piece of canvass of a wonky Norval Morrisseau face.

Ah...the good old days... I can't recall... but I bet Jack never told Telford about Norval's indiscretion.

Stardreamer

Interdependence of Nature (1969) Norval Morrisseau - NY Times exhibition review (2001)

Interdependence of Nature

Norval Morrisseau

Ink on paper, 22” x 27”, 1969

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Draw and Tell

The Transformative Lines of Norval Morrisseau/Copper Thunderbird

At the Drawing Center's Drawing Room

40 Wooster Street, SoHo

This extraordinary show is made up of some 50 drawings, on loan from the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Ottawa, by Norval Morrisseau, who also uses his Native American name, Copper Thunderbird.

He was born in 1932 on the Sand Point Reserve in northwestern Ontario and reared by his maternal grandfather, an Anishnaabe (also called Ojibwa or Chippewa) shaman from whom he learned much about tribal history, visual symbols and the spiritual utility of art. Later, as a painter and printmaker, Mr. Morrisseau combined traditional forms with modernist styles and in the early 1960's he became one of the first Native Americans to have a crossover career in contemporary art.

The drawings in the show, however, stand apart from much of this artist's other work for their psychological intensity. They were made while he was in prison in Canada beginning in 1969 and were executed in pencil on sheets from rolls of paper towels. All are of figures: human, animal (birds, bears, fish, snakes, mythical thunderbirds) or some combination of the two.

The style is fluidly pictographic. Outlines of forms are often drawn with a single continuous line; bodies are transparent, with fetuslike beings visible inside as if by X-ray. A few of the narrative scenes are naturalistic, but most have a keyed-up hallucinatory charge as hybrid beings interact, touching, exchanging energy in the form of quaking ''lines of power'' that radiate from eyes and limbs and pass into and through bodies, as seen in depictions of supernatural beings in Plains Indians ledger drawings.

Overall, there is a sense of a world in the process of relentless, urgent change, with no forms fixed or substantial, with no point of resolution or interval of repose. The results aren't ingratiating or beautiful. Like visionary work in many cultures, they're aggressive, sometimes violent, as much about fearfulness as about transcendence. And taken as a group, in a show, organized by Catherine de Zegher, director of the Drawing Center, and Gerald McMaster, a curator at the National Museum of the American Indian, they provide a tense, pressure cooker of an experience.

Holland Cotter

NY Times - March 16, 2001

Observations of the Astral World (1994) Norval Morrisseau

Observations of the Astral World

Norval Morrisseau

1994, acrylic on canvas, 93" x 202"

Collection of the National Gallery of Canada

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Erotica (1982) Norval Morrisseau and the Tom Thomas Native Art Museum

Untitled (Erotica)

Norval Morrisseau

c. 1982, acrylic on canvass, 22" x 28"

 

Norval Morrisseau painted dozens of paintings while residing on Baldwin Street in Toronto in the early 1980s. The proprietor of the "Art Imperial Gallery", a stone's throw from the Art Gallery of Ontario, was a woman named Ilona Nagy. Ms. Nagy, and her son, Tommy, were fascinating characters in their own right. Ilona's stories of door-to-door sales of her own artwork in winter, leaving baby Tommy sleeping in the car, are just the beginning of her entrepreneurial tales.

In 1990 she took her beloved Morrisseau art, purchased "for a song" directly from Norval, and opened the "Native Art Imperial Museum" upstairs. She charged people a few bucks to see her collection of a hundred or more Morrisseaus. From time to time she needed to sell a piece to pay bills, but many thought she over-valued Morrisseau's work. I liked that she prized it so.

In 1987 she attended my exhibition, "The Rabbit and the Resurrection", held at Gallery St. Luke in Toronto. She bought the largest piece in the show on opening night and made a big tadoo in leaving a deposit. When I delivered the painting after the show closed she wouldn't pay me more than half the agreed price so I ended up walking away. I never forgot being squeezed by her, nor did Norval.

All of her paintings are of course authentic, though many were the product of Norval's depressed state of mind at the time, for various legitimate reasons. While his art of this era reflects his temperament, he was ever the master artist and produced more great exploratory art, and even a few masterpieces. I consider this little piece to be one of them.

One day authentic Morrisseaus with erotic content will be sought after by the World's finest collectors and bring the highest valuations. This is world class art that is unique, pertinent and attractive to the aesthetic sensibilities of Paris, London, New York and LA.

Ms. Nagy is still around, though she must be in her eighties. She carries on without her son Tommy, a great guy with real musical talent, that I hear passed away. In Northumberland Ontario she runs a tea house where she still operates her Morrisseau "museum". I think she named it after Tommy. I wish her all the best.

Stardreamer

Migration (1994) Norval Morrisseau

Untitled (Migration)

Norval Morrisseau

1994, acrylic on canvass, 55" x 183"

From the beginning, Morrisseau created a visual bridge from the culture of the Anishnaabe to art, in terms of subject matter and style. His pictographic style has its roots in the distinctive beadwork of the Anishnaabe, where black rows of beads separate and delineate shapes such as the petals of a flower. He also had an early interest in colour, perhaps derived from the iconography of the Ojibway people in their traditional clothing, adornments, dyed porcupine quills and, later, glass beads.

To this Morrisseau added his own iconography. He reveals the souls of humans and animals through what has been simplistically termed an x-ray style of imaging. Sinewy black spirit lines emanate, surround and link the figures,while stylized skeletal elements and internal organs within the figures’ segments represent their spirituality, as well as, sometimes, their physical strength(rigid bone structure) or health and vitality(enlarged heart of a bird). Dots denote power. Lines drawn out of people’s mouths represent power or communication or establish relationships. An intersected circle expresses the idea of duality - night and day, men and women - and the concept of the necessity of two halves to balance the whole.

Barbara Sibbald

Exerpt from - Artist as visionary - 2006

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