LEO YERXA (1947-2017) ANISHINAABE (OJIBWE)

Untitled (Nude in a Landscape),
block print, plate: 18 x 13.5 in (45.7 x 34.3 cm), framed
artist's proof #3.


Provenance
Private Collection, Ottawa.

Born in Couchiching First Nation in Northwestern Ontario, Leo Yerxa studied graphic arts at Algonquin College and later fine arts at the University of Waterloo. Yerxa’s work straddled the divide between his European education and Indigenous cultures. He frequently worked in watercolours and collage, rejecting the stereotype of Indigenous art but always drawing on his own traditions.

Former Ottawa Centre MP Paul Dewar, a friend of Yerxa's, commented, “He believed deeply in the importance of his culture. He was reclaiming it through his art… you see it in all of his art, the symbols and the stories… they weren’t just drawings of stories, they were deeply imbedded in Indigenous culture and symbols [1].”

He would be commissioned to design the 1976 series IV Olympic Coins, combining Indigenous art motifs with track and field events. An award-winning artist, poet, and writer, Yerxa illustrated and published numerous children’s books, including Ancient Thunder, which celebrates wild horses and the natural world of the prairies, and received the Governor General’s Award for Children’s Book Illustration for it.

1. Blair Crawford, “Obituary: Ojibway artist Leo Yerxa bridged gulf between Indigenous and European art,” Ottawa Citizen, 15 September 2017.