Morrisseau experts hunt for up to 10,000 pieces Museums, galleries were the easy part: now on to basements and garages

Paul Gessell

The Ottawa Citizen

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

 

CREDIT: There may be 10,000 Norval Morrisseau paintings, dating back to when the prolific artist sold his works, which are now worth thousands, for just a few dollars.

Cataloguing Norval Morrisseau's total artistic output during his lifetime has become a far more difficult task than anyone imagined, with up to 10,000 artworks in circulation.

 

A six-person committee of experts that formed in 2005 to create a catalogue raisonne listing all of Mr. Morrisseau's artworks has already identified about 1,000 pieces.

 

But those were the easy ones for the six experts -- the Norval Morrisseau Heritage Society -- to register. They were the ones that, in most cases, were known to have been in gallery exhibitions and were properly documented.

 

Tracking down as many as 9,000 more will be more difficult because many of those works are owned privately, many from the days before Mr. Morrisseau became famous or from his days as a derelict on the street trading art for alcohol, said Richard Baker, a Toronto lawyer and longtime Morrisseau associate who is the society's spokesman.

"These eventually will start to surface, some of them, anyway," Mr. Baker said. "Many never will."

 

Legions of people may not even be aware they own a potentially valuable painting from the man often called the father of contemporary aboriginal art. There could be many an attic or basement in Canada containing a painting purchased for the price of a bottle of beer, but, in today's market, worth thousands of dollars.

 

Complicating the picture are the large number of Morrisseau fakes in circulation.

The fakes are such a problem that the society issued a warning this holiday season for shoppers to beware of what they are buying.

 

"A work of art makes a very special Christmas gift you'll treasure for a lifetime, but make sure you know what you're buying," the society said in its advisory. "There are many works available for sale to the public that are falsely attributed to Norval Morrisseau. ..."

 

"Inquiries about the work's provenance or history are advisable, as it is to become familiar with the artist's work and pricing in other galleries, auctions and exhibitions," the advisory concludes.

 

The market has especially been flooded with fakes in the past five years, says Mr. Baker. Some of the forgeries are sold through galleries and some on the Internet through eBay and other websites.

 

The six Morrisseau experts began their work last year on the catalogue raisonne at the request of the artist. The experts include three of the top curators of aboriginal art in the country, Lee-Ann Martin of the Canadian Museum of Civilization, Greg Hill of the National Gallery of Canada and Viviane Gray of the Indian and Inuit Art Centre.

 

Mr. Baker said he expects his group's efforts will take years to complete. The society has no funding and does its artistic sleuthing on a volunteer basis.

Without a complete and accurate catalogue raisonne, it becomes more difficult to separate the authentic from the phony works. Experts know certain tricks, which they are loath to reveal, that help them to authenticate works. But clever fakes are still easy to produce.

 

"Norval's work is fairly easy to copy," says Mr. Baker. "If you attempted to paint a Morrisseau, you could probably do a pretty good job, just copying it completely."

Mr. Baker said he was not aware of action by police, or other authorities, to stop the production of fake Morrisseaus. It seems that the artist, or his representatives, must take the lead in fighting the problem.

 

Various galleries make a point of claiming in advertisements that all the Morrisseaus they sell are "authentic."

 

Mr. Baker declined to discuss the gallery situation but said consumers should be especially careful of buying on the Internet. If in doubt, according to the society's advisory, works should be taken for authentication to the Art Dealers Association of Canada.

 

Mr. Morrisseau is in his 70s -- his exact birthdate is in dispute -- and living in a nursing home on Vancouver Island. He suffers from Parkinson's disease and is in fragile health. The value of his paintings will undoubtedly increase upon his death.

A retrospective of Mr. Morrisseau's work, Shaman Artist, opened at the National Gallery last winter and now is travelling the country, most recently opening at the McMichael Art Gallery at Kleinburg, Ont.

 

It was the first solo show by a First Nations artist ever held at the National Gallery.

 

© The Ottawa Citizen 2007