Norval Morrisseau

Also known by the spirit name Miskwaabik Animiiki (meaning “Copper Thunderbird”) in Anishinaabemowin, Norval Morrisseau is widely considered to be the grandfather of modern Indigenous art in Canada. He is credited with pioneering the contemporary Indigenous pictographic style popularly referred to as the Woodland school. Morrisseau’s paintings are characterized by thick black lines and vibrant colors, and they often depict segmented, X-ray-like animal and human bodies and plants that are interconnected. Traditional Ojibwe (Anishinaabe) spiritual themes are reflected in a Modernist style in his works.

Early life and influences: The 1930s and the ’40s

Born Jean-Baptiste Norman Henry Morriseau in Northern Ontario, Norval Morrisseau (the second s in his surname was added later) was the eldest child of Grace Theresa Potan Nanakonagos and Abel Morriseau. As a child, he was sent to live with his maternal grandparents on the Sand Point Reserve (now Bingwi Neyaashi Anishinaabek First Nation) in Ontario. Morrisseau was raised with the dual influence of his grandfather, who was an Anishinaabe shaman trained in the Midewiwin tradition (also known as the Grand Medicine Society, a religious group made up of healers and spiritual advisers), and his grandmother, who taught him about Christianity. These two belief systems and their mythologies greatly factored into the thematic underpinnings of Morrisseau’s artwork.

When he was about 6 years old, Morrisseau was sent to St. Joseph’s Indian Residential School in Fort William, Ontario. Residential schools were set up by the Canadian government in the late 1800s to get Indigenous children to assimilate into mainstream Euro-Canadian culture. Pupils were barred from practicing their cultural traditions or speaking their native languages. Like many Indigenous children of his time who later provided accounts of being subjected to abuse in these school systems, Morrisseau reportedly faced sexual abuse in the school. He left the residential school system after a few years and withdrew from formal schooling about age 10. He spent much of his time with community elders or alone, drawing spirit beings he heard about and depictions of Anishinaabe oral tradition found in birch bark scrolls and petroglyphs.

Discover the fascinating events that shaped the world, straight from our editors.

SIGN UP

By clicking “Sign Up”, you consent to the Britannica Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

Britannica Quiz

Can You Match These Lesser-Known Paintings to Their Artists?

The exploratory years: The 1950s

When Morrisseau fell critically ill in 1950, a healing ceremony was organized for his recovery, and he was given a new name—Miskwaabik Animiiki, or “Copper Thunderbird.” Depictions of the thunderbird appear in a number of his paintings. In the mid-1950s Morrisseau married Harriet Kakegamic, whom he had met during another phase of illness at a sanatorium in Fort William. Morrisseau also devoted more time to art, painting on birch bark baskets made by Kakegamic’s mother, who was from the Cree community. The couple moved from Beardmore to McKenzie Island near Cochenour, Ontario, in the late 1950s in search of a steadier income, and Morrisseau found work in a gold mine in Cochenour. He became acquainted with a number of people in Cochenour who influenced his journey as an artist, including Joseph and Esther Weinstein, an artist couple who broadened Morrisseau’s views of art and shared with him an interest in modern art.

The breakthrough: The 1960s

Morrisseau moved back to Beardmore in 1961 after taking leave from the gold mine to focus on art. Here he was introduced to Jack Pollock (born John Henry Pollock), a Canadian painter and art dealer, and the two agreed on an exhibition of his works in Pollock’s Toronto gallery, which happened in 1962. Indigenous art had not yet been displayed in contemporary art galleries in Canada at this time, and this exhibition gave Morrisseau a national platform. All his paintings were sold on the first day, and he started gaining recognition at the national level.

Despite the success that followed his first exhibition, Morrisseau’s art received mixed reviews; it was sometimes elevated as modern and other times understood from a stereotypical colonial mindset. He challenged these conceptions and the sensationalization of his struggles with alcoholism in media, and he achieved some success in getting art dealers and galleries to notice and buy his works, perhaps bringing attention to Indigenous art in the process. His art was displayed in Glenbow Museum in Calgary, Alberta, and the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (Musée de la province de Québec at that time) in 1965 and 1966, respectively. 

Morrisseau was commissioned to create a mural for the Indians of Canada Pavilion at Montreal’s Expo 67, the year Canada celebrated its centennial. The First Nations peoples of Canada used this opportunity to display their art and share stories of colonial policies that had uncomfortable consequences for the Indigenous peoples. Morrisseau, however, exited the expo midway through because its organizers sought to censor the mural that he was working on. His image showed a female form of Mother Earth nursing bear cubs, following an Ojibwe story, but the organizers felt this was too unconventional, and Morrisseau’s assistant Carl Ray was left to alter the image and complete it.

Explore Britannica Premium!

The trusted destination for professionals, college students, and lifelong learners.

SUBSCRIBE

After an exhibition in St.-Paul-de-Vence, France, in 1969—Morrisseau’s first international solo exhibition—he was given the moniker “Picasso of the North,” drawing on Marc Chagall’s comparison of Morrisseau to Picasso.

Struggles, spiritual journey, and fame: The 1970s

In the early 1970s Morrisseau became a member of Professional Native Indian Artists Inc., also called the Indian Group of Seven. The group was hugely influential: Their work formed much of the basis for modern Indigenous art. Morrisseau supported emerging Indigenous artists and was noticed as a contemporary artist, but he also grappled with alcoholism. He was imprisoned for public drunkenness in 1973. The artist was highly prolific during his six months in prison, creating works such as Indian Jesus Christ, which lay bare the artist’s spiritual ruminations.

Morrisseau was introduced to Eckankar, a Westernized version of a Punjabi spiritual tradition, in 1975. He took to the movement’s teachings and, accessing a deeper connection with his Anishinaabe spirituality, began to think of himself as an artist-shaman who was influenced by more than Anishinaabe culture. His talent continued to be recognized in Canada and abroad throughout the 1970s and the ’80s. “Norval Morrisseau and the Emergence of the Image Makers” (1984–85), a traveling exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario and other galleries that showcased some of Morrisseau’s most impressive works alongside striking paintings by lesser-known Cree and Ojibwe artists (“the Image Makers”), demonstrated his influence on others. He was awarded the Order of Canada in 1978 for his contributions to art.

Decline, discovery of art fraud, and legacy: 2005 and beyond

Morrisseau gradually disappeared from public view as he began to suffer from Parkinson disease. He moved to a nursing home in 2005, close to the family of Gabor Vadas, his caregiver in later years. He was estranged from his children at this time. About the early 1990s, Morrisseau had become aware of the existence of a large number of forgeries of his artwork. He formed the Norval Morrisseau Heritage Society (NMHS) with Vadas and others to create a formal catalog of the first 30 years of his work, the absence of which may have made him an easy target of fraud rings. This project came to be known as the Morrisseau Project: 1955–1985.

In 2006 art curator Greg Hill held a solo exhibit of Morrisseau’s works at the National Gallery of Canada. It was the first time a First Nations artist had a solo retrospective in that space. The exhibition revived interest in Morrisseau’s work, and it toured to the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., the next year. Soon after Morrisseau returned to Toronto from this exhibition in Washington, he died of complications arising from Parkinson disease.

Although Morrisseau had filed a number of affidavits to identify fakes and notified gallery owners about them in his later years, investigations by Canadian authorities in the years following his death were inconclusive. Finally, in 2023, a massive forgery ring of Morrisseau’s paintings was uncovered and more than 1,000 fake paintings were seized. A 2019 documentary entitled There Are No Fakes centered on how Kevin Hearn, a member of Canadian rock group Barenaked Ladies, was duped into buying a fake Morrisseau from a gallery in Toronto. This documentary greatly publicized the issue, and in March 2023 the Canadian police arrested eight people in connection with the forgeries. According to one estimate, the number of Morrisseau fakes could be upward of 10,000 paintings, with fraudsters amassing up to $100 million in profits, making it one of the biggest frauds in art history. More forgery operations related to Morrisseau’s works came to light in 2024 and 2025, with some of the trials continuing into 2026.

The Morrisseau Project is now housed in Carleton University, Ottawa, and researchers include NMHS members and other art scholars. The project also partners with Carleton University and MacKenzie Art Gallery to support Norval Morrisseau: Storylines, an initiative to preserve and present the artist’s legacy to the world.

Discover More

Ojibwe

Windigo

Medicine Society

Group of Seven

Mythologies of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas

Indigenous Peoples of the Americas