Case of Morrisseau fakes raises issues of racism, identity

Norval Morrisseau, the first First Nations painter to break the so-called white-Indian barrier that defined the professional art world in the mid-1960s.The Art Gallery of Ontario collection includes an early self-portrait by the Ojibwa artist Norval Morrisseau depicting a naked man encircled by seven fanged serpents.

“When anyone rips off the work of Morrisseau, they distort his legacy, they destroy his language,” said Jonathan Sommer, a lawyer in Sutton, Que. who has previously represented several clients, including the musician Kevin Hearn of the Barenaked Ladies, who are suing art dealers over alleged fakes. “They undermine the purity of what he was doing.

“It’s not just a style, it’s a way of thinking, and it certainly has had an impact on young artists today,” said the Cree curator and art historian Gerald McMaster. “It influenced [Indigenous] artists to see the world from the culture.” Sommer also points out many works attributed to Morrisseau feature a black dry-brush signature of his name, yet there are no known examples of him using that signature in the verified works that belong to public collections.

Sommer agrees, seeing racism in the way fakes have been allowed to propagate: “Whether it’s overt racism or a banal institutional racism that prevents people from thinking about Indigenous art on the same level as Emily Carr or the Group of Seven, that seems to be a factor in the way Morrisseau is perceived … That lack of respect and protection creates great opportunities for criminals to forge his work.

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