Self Portrait, 1973

The Pollock Gallery, Toronto 

Private Collection, Toronto

Norval Morrisseau has been a prominent artist in the Canadian art scene since his first exhibition in the early 1960s. He is credited as the creator of the Woodland School of Art and a prominent member of Professional Native Indian Artists Inc., or the “Indian Group of Seven”. This was an Indigenous art collective formed in the early 1970s to promote and support Indigenous artists throughout Canada. 

Self Portrait was created in 1973, the same year that Morrisseau was appointed a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. At this time the artist began to explore a blended spiritual perspective between Anishinaabe culture and Christianity in his work. During this period, the artist also continued his struggle with his own demons. This was, however, a highly industrious time for Morrisseau. 

During this transformative phase, Morrisseau maintained his collaboration with art dealer Jack Pollock. Morrisseau first exhibited with The Pollock Gallery in Toronto in 1962. Pollock was a painter, art educator, author and gallerist who represented Canadian artists and played a defining role in the Toronto art scene for over three decades. 

In Self Portrait, the artist is painted with five serpents surrounding his head and chest. Lister Sinclair and Jack Pollock discuss in The Art of Norval Morrisseau (1979) that according to Ojibway legend, the number five frequently represents the primordial senses of man, the serpents can be seen as representing the duality between good and evil. Confronted by these serpents on each side of him, Morrisseau depicts the battles he had been internally grappling with since his youth.