Eight suspects have been charged for their alleged part in a massive forgery operation of work by Canadian indigenous artist Norval Morrisseau.
The Thunder Bay Police Service (TBPS) in northwestern Ontario say that three interconnected gangs produced works in near sweatshop conditions, hiring underage painters to flood the market. The investigation was initiated after one collector, Kevin Hearn – the keyboardist and guitarist for country-tinged pop rock band the Barenaked Ladies – began to suspect the canvas he purchased from a Toronto gallery was not the real thing.
Morrisseau, also known as Copper Thunderbird, died in 2017. He was highly regarded in his lifetime for a composition style that fused legends of the Bingwi Neyaashi Anishinaabek First Nation with European traditions. With thick black outlines and bright colours he depicted spiritual and mystical symbols and analogous landscapes, the work forming inspiration for the Woodland school of art which influenced successive generations. His canvases can be found in major collections nationally and in 2005 the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa organized a retrospective of his work.
As a result of this two-and-a-half-year investigation, the eight suspects, among them the artist’s nephew Benjamin Paul Morrisseau, are facing 40 total charges relating to forgery, fraud and criminal organisation. More than 1,000 alleged fraudulent paintings, prints and other artworks were seized by police, including those that had sold for tens of thousands of dollars to unsuspecting members of the public.
Morrisseau notoriously did not keep a list of works and would give works away to friends or in exchange for minor goods and services. With no inventory, some estimates claim that for every genuine work by the artist there are nine more on the market likely to be fake.
