Pioneer makes his final breakthrough
Frosty
Norval Morrisseau breaks race barrier at National Gallery
Paul Gessell
The Ottawa Citizen
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Norval Morrisseau put First Nations art on the map in Canada. Now, his
upcoming solo exhibition -- the first by a native artist in the history
of the National Gallery -- ends a long era of discrimination.
An ailing, old man in a wheelchair will make history Wednesday when he
arrives at the Great Hall of the National Gallery of Canada and
officially ends a long history of apartheid at the country's leading
art institution.
Anishnaabe artist Norval Morrisseau, also known as Copper Thunderbird
and sometimes called "Picasso of the North," is scheduled to travel
this week from a nursing home in Nanaimo on Vancouver Island to attend
a landmark exhibition of his paintings and drawings at the National
Gallery.
Norval Morrisseau: Shaman Artist is the first solo show by a First
Nations artist ever at the 126-year-old National Gallery. A media
preview, attended by Morriseau, is scheduled for Wednesday.
The exhibition of 59 works covering the period 1958-2002 will not be
open to the public until Friday.
Expect some surprises. A radically different, more aboriginal approach
has been taken in preparing the Morrisseau show.
The exhibition could very well be the final nail in the coffin of
institutionalized discrimination against First Nations art, or what
used to be called Indian art, at the National Gallery. (The story of
Inuit art is different. It has long been shown in the National Gallery,
but in separate basement quarters -- a subterranean art reserve far
from the Group of Seven or European masters.)
Throughout Canada's history, most aboriginal art was generally
considered not as fine art, but something akin to folk art, decorative
art or handicraft and deemed worthy of being shown only in museums with
mummies and dinosaurs rather than with Rembrandts and Picassos. The
National Gallery did acquire some aboriginal art in its infancy but by
the early 1900s the collection was turned over to what is now called
the Canadian Museum of Civilization.
Attitudes at the National Gallery began changing in the 1980s when it
started acquiring contemporary, but not historical, aboriginal works.
First up were works by Carl Beam. Robert Houle, Alex Janvier and others
came later. (Artists of aboriginal origins, including Rita Letendre and
Robert Markle, were in the collection before Beam but the style and
content of their acquired works were not considered particularily
aboriginal.)
Despite being widely recognized as the father of contemporary
aboriginal art and despite the pleas of some influential people,
Morrisseau did not become part of the collection until 2000. As early
as 1972, Selwyn Dewdney, an influential anthropologist and art
enthusiast who befriended Morrisseau in northern Ontario early in his
career, pressed the National Gallery to buy some of the artist's work.
The gallery refused.
"I made a pitch at the National Gallery for inclusion of your work in
the permanent collection but encountered deaf ears," Dewdney wrote
Morrisseau. "It appears that if you're of Amerindian origin the proper
place for your art is a museum!"
The National Gallery, Art Gallery of Ontario and others decided only a
few years ago it was time to re-integrate historical aboriginal art in
their collections. "It makes a lot of sense," Pierre Theberge, gallery
director, said in a 2002 interview. "It will give a broader perspective
to Canadian art, not just the art of the white settlers but the art of
the aboriginals." Theberge said this change in attitude was driven by a
larger movement within society to welcome aboriginals into the
manstream.
But the apartheid would not officially end until a First Nations artist
was finally given a solo show akin to the kinds of exhibitions granted
such "white" Canadian artists as Tom Thomson, Christopher Pratt or
Emily Carr. The consensus among the aboriginal art community was that
Morrisseau had to be the one.
"The aboriginal art community sees him as an icon, both for his
esthetic qualities and pioneering qualities," says Lee-Ann Martin,
curator of contemporary aboriginal art at the Canadian Museum of
Civilization.
Morrisseau was the first Canadian aboriginal artist, creating
aboriginal-themed works, to receive adulation within the mainstream art
world. His first exhibition, in 1962 at Toronto's Pollock Gallery, sold
out. He was about 30 at the time, his exact age being somewhat of a
mystery because of conflicting birth records.
Art critics quickly labelled Morrisseau a "genius" but, over the years,
they also loaded other, less flattering baggage onto the artist. This
exhibition offers a new, more aboriginal perspective on an artist
perhaps best known in the Canadian news media during the 1980s for
trading art on the streets of Vancouver for bottles of booze.
Morrisseau is now into his early 70s. He suffers Parkinson's disease,
has difficulty speaking and no longer paints. But his influence within
the Canadian art world remains.
The artist often said he wanted to be "the most powerful shaman in the
universe." Some admirers think he reached his goal. But even if he
didn't, he certainly had a turbulent, controversial and, at times,
magical journey leaping for the stars.
For the Story of Morrisseau's Life, See Page B4.
© The Ottawa Citizen 2006
Rolland Pangowish
Wikwemikong Community Development Group
Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve
P.O. Box 112
Wikwemikong, Ontario
P0P 2J0
Direct Line: (705) 859-1275
E-Mail: real...@hotmail.com