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 popularity gave rise to a cottage industry of counterfeiters.Alex Waterhouse-Hayward/The Globe and Mail
Police in Ontario are expected to announce a series of arrests on Friday related to a years-long investigation into fraudulent paintings credited to the late Ojibwe artist Norval Morrisseau.
Earlier this week officers made eight arrests related to suspected fraudulent Morrisseau works, according to a source familiar with the investigation. The Globe is not naming the source, who was not authorized to speak to the media.
The Ontario Provincial Police and Thunder Bay Police Service have been investigating fake Morrisseau paintings since a 2019 documentary uncovered an alleged art-fraud ring in Thunder Bay.
Mr. Morrisseau, creator of the Woodland School style of art, featuring bright colours and spiritual themes, died in 2007 at age 75, but his paintings continue to attract international admiration, with single pieces earning upwards of $300,000 at auction.
The popularity has given rise to a cottage industry of counterfeiters. During his lifetime, Mr. Morrisseau identified 175 forgeries of his work in six galleries.
Since then it’s believed that thousands of forgeries priced in the millions of dollars have cluttered the marketplace.
The documentary, There Are No Fakes, follows Barenaked Ladies band member Kevin Hearn’s attempt to determine the provenance of a $20,000 painting that art curators told him was a fake.
The film uncovered a violent crime surrounding an alleged fraud ring in Thunder Bay.
In 2016, the alleged ringleader Gary Lamont was sentenced to five years in prison on five counts of sexual assault.
A judge eventually ruled that a gallery owner had falsified the provenance documentation of Mr. Hearn’s painting and awarded the musician $60,000.
Mr. Morrisseau was born in 1931 or 1932 in what was then the Sand Point Reserve (now Bingwi Neyaashi Anishinaabek) on Lake Nipigon, north of Thunder Bay.
He spent four years in a residential school, where he suffered sexual abuse, but then returned to his grandparents and attended a public school in nearby Beardmore.
As a young man, he had begun his work representing Anishinaabe legends on birchbark and was provided with more materials by the doctor and amateur artist Joseph Weinstein when he was working at the mine near Red Lake in his 20s.
The early work drew on various influences, including birchbark scrolls, Anishinaabe beadwork, petroglyphs and stained glass in churches. As his reputation grew he met Toronto gallery owner Jack Pollock, who mounted an exhibition of Mr. Morrisseau’s work in 1962 that sold out in a single day.
He was commissioned to produce art for Expo ‘67 and was featured in several international exhibitions the following year, where he earned the moniker “Picasso of the North.”
With a report from Kate Taylor