The Winnipeg Art Gallery said that the painting, Astral Plain Scouts, is being kept in a vault after Thunder Bay police informed the gallery the painting was included in David Voss's agreed statement of facts related to his forgery operation.Morrisseau Art Consulting Inc.
The Winnipeg Art Gallery and Qaumajuq says it is keeping a fake painting attributed to First Nations artist Norval Morrisseau in a vault and it is planning next steps for the piece.
WAG-Qaumajuq director and chief executive officer Stephen Borys said police reached out to the gallery on Friday about a guilty plea made by fraudster David Voss earlier this month.
In an agreed statement of facts, Voss indicated one of the gallery’s paintings, called Astral Plain Scouts, came from his forgery operation. A lead investigator in the case, Thunder Bay police Detective Sergeant Jason Rybak, called Voss the “architect of this whole scheme.”
The late Morrisseau was an acclaimed artist and residential school survivor whose work continues to be displayed in prominent buildings and institutions. His legacy has been tarnished by fake paintings that make up what police call the “biggest art fraud in world history.”
Borys said a team at the gallery worked closely with Thunder Bay police for more than three years and it offered to give the painting to investigators but this was “deemed unnecessary.”
“We will continue to comply with any requests from law enforcement, including handing over the artwork if needed,” he said in a statement. “The gallery has not spoken publicly about this matter because it was an ongoing investigation.”
Rybak told The Globe and Mail on Monday that the Winnipeg gallery was “extremely co-operative from the onset as were all public institutions” in Canada and the U.S. that officers dealt with. He said police did not seize Astral Plain Scouts because officers knew where it was and storing paintings was a “massive issue.”
There are no plans to seize the painting, Rybak added.
Borys said it was acquired through a donation from a private collector in 2000. A collector got the work from a dealer and was unaware of its false provenance, he added. Borys did not provide the name of the collector.
The gallery is “deeply concerned and disappointed by this art fraud,” he added.
“Our institution is committed to preserving the integrity of our collection and maintaining the trust of our community,” he said. “We are glad that the police have taken this incident seriously to prevent such occurrences in the future and to uphold the legacy of Norval Morrisseau and other artists.”
Jonathan Sommer, a lawyer specializing in art fraud who has looked extensively at Morrisseau’s work, said it would be a mistake for anyone to assume police have resolved all of the issues with the fraud or that pieces identified as fakes thus far form an exhaustive list of all the ones that exist.
Sommer and researcher John Zemanovich run a company, Morrisseau Art Consulting Inc., that investigates and examines work attributed to Morrisseau.
Earlier this year, Sommer spoke to The Globe regarding concerns about the authenticity of two other paintings that have now been officially deemed in court to be fake.
One of the paintings, called Salmon Life Giving Spawn, was hanging at the Ontario Legislature. Another one, called Circle of Four, was part of a National Capital Commission collection. Both paintings were included in the Voss agreed statement of facts.
In January, Salmon Life Giving Spawn was removed from a room at the legislature and seized by police after Globe reporting on the painting. The same month, the NCC publicly announced it was working with police after The Globe identified Circle of Four as a suspected forgery.
Circle of Four was donated to the NCC’s collection by now-former senator Serge Joyal, who acquired the piece at an auction in the 1990s. Rybak says both Joyal and the government of Canada are victims of the fraud.
Sommer said there are thousands of fraudulent Morrisseau pieces yet to be revealed.
“We encourage all collectors and institutions to be pro-active in verifying their collections,” he said. “We are aware of paintings in numerous publicly funded institutions that we believe should be investigated.”