Artists

May 6, 2017

This painting by Norval Morrisseau is from the private collection of Linda Lundstrom. Purchased by Olive Lundström, in 1966 or 1967. Norval would visit her Cochenour Fabric Centre with his paintings rolled up under his arm. As a child, Linda remembers him vividly. Cochenour was a gold mining town of about 250 people and Norval was a striking figure, with an unusual gait, a roll of brown builder’s paper under his arm, always heading somewhere important.

Olive would often trade fabric for a painting, so Norval’s wife Harriet would have good lining for the beautifully beaded moccasins and mukluks she made. Rickard Lundström did not approve of Olive’s friendship with Norval and did not understand her appreciation of his art, so Olive hid the paintings behind the deep freeze in their basement. One day, Rickard discovered the paintings and demanded that Olive get rid of them. She gave some to each of her three daughters and told them to hide them, and she gave the rest away.
Norval Morrisseau

Bonnie Devine

Robert Houle

Keesic Douglas

Michael Belmore

Daphne Odjig

Carl Ray

Jackson Beardy

Goyce Kakegamic

Joshim Kakegamic

Arthur Shilling

Jane Ash Poitras

 

AGO Show: BEFORE AND AFTER THE HORIZON: ANISHINAABE ARTISTS OF THE GREAT LAKES

July 26 – November 23, 2014
EXHIBITION OVERVIEW (excerpt from Art Gallery of Ontario 2014)

For more than 12,000 years, the Great Lakes region has produced a distinct culture of Anishinaabe artists and storytellers. The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) celebrates those artists and stories this summer with Before and after the Horizon: Anishinaabe Artists of the Great Lakes, featuring artworks by leading modern and contemporary artists — including Norval Morrisseau, Bonnie Devine, Robert Houle, Keesic Douglas, Michael Belmore, Daphne Odjig and others — who sought to visually express the spiritual and social dimensions of human relations with the earth.

The traditional home of the Anishinaabe peoples — comprised of Algonquin, Mississauga, Nippissing, Ojibwe (Chippewa), Odawa (Ottawa), Potawatomi and Saulteaux nations — the region includes Ontario, Manitoba and Quebec in addition to eight U.S. states and has inspired generations of stories and experiences that are spiritual, political and challenge certain accepted accounts of history. These same sources of inspiration are visible in traditional Anishinaabe arts included in the exhibition, including clan pictographs on treaty documents, bags embroidered with porcupine quill, painted drums and carved pipes, spoons and bowls…

“This is a powerful exhibition that is very much about this place and its timeless connection to a distinct world view, one that continues to resonate with Anishinaabe,” said Hunter. “The AGO is situated in the very heart of traditional Anishinaabe territory, and we are honoured to position this exhibition as a catalyst for reimaging our sense of place and community, and to feature the ground-breaking work of a significant group of artists who have lived and work in this area.”

…“This exhibition is a welcome opportunity to reconsider, through various political and aesthetic interventions by Anishinaabe artists, how Canadian art history has been traditionally presented at the AGO,” said Devine. “The Anishinaabe have continuously occupied the territory around the Great Lakes for at least 12,000 years, so a survey exhibition of contemporary Anishinaabe art is overdue.”