Migrating, 1978 by Norval Morrisseau
Norval Morrisseau
Migrating, 1978
acrylic on canvas
signed in syllabics and dated 1978 lower right
52 x 53 ins ( 132.1 x 134.6 cms )
Auction Estimate: $40,000.00 - $60,000.00
Price Realized $108,000.00
Sale date: December 6th 2023
The Pollock Gallery, Toronto
Private Collection, Toronto
Lister Sinclair and Jack Pollock, “The Art of Norval Morrisseau”, Toronto, 1979, pages 116, 133, reproduced page 152
Armand Garnet Ruffo, “Norval Morrisseau, Man Changing into Thunderbird”, British Columbia, 2014, pages 196 and 198
As Jack Pollock reflected, “As soon as Morrisseau joined the Eckankar movement in 1976, he gave up drinking altogether. Not an easy task.” The artist’s use of colour became bolder and brighter in his later paintings of the 1970s. As Armand Garnet Ruffo writes of Morrisseau, “a light goes on that illuminates the world and confirms everything taught to him by his grandfather Potan all those years ago. He connects Eckankar’s emphasis on soul travel through the astral planes to his traditional Ojibway teachings.” Morrisseau began to deeply explore myths and legends, reinventing them from the various worlds of the Great Ojibway.
Throughout his career, Morrisseau repeatedly used the same classic, balanced compositional forms. The subjects are often depicted in a pyramid, with a central, symmetrical arrangement of figures or groupings balanced on the ground of the work, as exemplified in “Migrating” of 1978. Painted two years after his exposure to this new belief system, “Migrating” pays homage to the Anishinaabe oral account of the journey of the Ojibwe in the historic 500 year migration from the northeastern shores of North America to the Great Lakes region, as recorded in the prophecies, “The Seven Fires”. Migrating is a delightfully rich composition, complete with important historical and spiritual references and executed in Morrisseau’s quintessentially bright palette of this seminal period.
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Norval Morrisseau
(1931 - 2007) RCA, Order of Canada
Born in 1931 at Sandy Point Reserve, Ontario, Morrisseau was a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts since 1970. Norval Morrisseau was the celebrated founder of the Woodland School, which revitalized Anishnabe iconography, traditionally incised on rocks and Midewiwin birchbark scrolls. A self-taught painter, printmaker, and illustrator, Morrisseau created an innovative vocabulary which was initially criticized in the Native community for its disclosure of traditional spiritual knowledge. His colourful, figurative images delineated with heavy black form lines and x-ray articulations, were characteristically signed with the syllabic spelling of Copper Thunderbird, the name Morrisseau’s grandfather gave him. Morrisseau completed many commissions during his career including the mural for the Indians of Canada Pavilion at Expo 67. He was made a member of the Order of Canada in 1978 and, in 1980, received honourary doctorates from both McGill and McMaster universities. In 1995 Morrisseau was honoured by the Assembly of First Nations.