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Morrisseau, Norval
Untitled
Before 1980
Norval Morrisseau, an inventive Anishinaabe painter from Northwestern Ontario, is among Canada's most celebrated artists of the twentieth century. He emerged in the early 1960s art world in Toronto, after he created a new artistic movement that blended his knowledge of traditional stories and images with the bold colour palette, flattened style, and easel format of modernist painting. This painting is notable for the prominent phalluses, figures, and the central fish form, which are interconnected through weblike, flowing power lines. The style - and somewhat risqué subject matter - are emblematic of Morrisseau's development in the late 1970s, when he embraced a more vivid colour palette and increasingly complex, dynamic designs that nonetheless remained faithful to the iconic tradition of image making that he championed.
 
Morrisseau, Norval
Beardmore ON 1932-Toronto ON 2007
Untitled
Before 1980
Acrylic on canvas
182.7 x 125.5 cm
Gift of Nicholas and Barbara Diamant, 2018
61-014

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