NORVAL MORRISSEAU, C.M. (1931-2007) ANISHINAABE (OJIBWE)
Mother and Child, c. late 1960s or early 1970s
acrylic on canvas, 35.5 x 25.5 in (90.2 x 64.8 cm)
signed, "ᐅᓴᐊ·ᐱᑯᐱᓀᓯ".

Provenance
Acquired directly from the Artist by the Private Collection, Toronto.

A remarkably tender depiction, Mother and Child presents the unconditional love and special relationship between a mother and her children with stylistic and emotional finesse. While the “Madonna and Child” has a long historical precedent, Morrisseau has transformed the traditional subject of maternity to reflect his own visual and thematic interests. In Mother and Child, we encounter a woman and her young infant against a joyous, seemingly sun-charged, yellow ground. The two are intertwined, locked in an embrace. In the exchange of their gazes, Morrisseau captures the warm psychological nuances that characterize the maternal bond. A striking and gentle composition, the artist may have painted the pair with wife, Harriet, and daughter, Victoria, as his imagined models.

References: For similar and related works see The Artist’s Wife and Daughter, 1975 in the McMichael Canadian Art Collection; Virgin Mary with Christ Child and St. John the Baptist, 1973 (Collection of the Department of Indigenous and Northern Affairs) illustrated in Elizabeth McLuhan and Tom Hill, Norval Morrisseau and the Emergence of the Image Makers, (Art Gallery of Ontario, 1984), fig. 17, p. 37 and in Lister Sinclair and Jack Pollock, The Art of Norval Morrisseau, (Toronto: Methuen Publications, 1979), p. 101.