Lot 64
NORVAL MORRISSEAU, C.M. (1931-2007) ANISHINAABE (OJIBWE)
Bird Family, early 1970s
acrylic on composite press board, 32 x 24 in (81.3 x 61 cm), framed.
signed, "ᐅᓴᐊ·ᐱᑯᐱᓀᓯ";
inscribed in graphite in an unknown hand, verso, "II".

Provenance
Ex. Coll. Gail Guthrie Valaskakis, Montreal;
by descent in the family.

Birds of various types appear frequently throughout Morrisseau’s long career, often as onlookers to divine events or as the central theme of a work. This configuration, wherein the forms of his birds overlay one another to crowd the centre of the painting, is likewise a stylistic convention that the artist often utilized to suggest closeness of the family of animals. This focus on nearness and intimacy is accentuated by omitting any superfluous descriptive details of their surroundings. In Bird Family, the warmth and grace of this avian family is brought out in soft and pleasant neutral tints of earthen browns and green. We sense that rhythm is fundamental to the artist: Morrisseau composes the birds, the hovering sun, and their divided circles in characteristic heavy, flowing black lines that seem to have no clear starting or endpoint. There is just a sense of never ceasing movement that directs our eye throughout all the elements of the picture.

References: For a similarly configured composition of a family of birds, see Watching, 1968; Birds Thinking of Eggs, 1974; Swimming, 1976; Family of Nature, 1976 illustrated in Lister Sinclair and Jack Pollock, The Art of Norval Morrisseau, (Toronto: Methuen Publications, 1979), p. 84, 110, 126, and 133, respectively. See also Shaman and Birds, late 1970s, First Arts, Private Sale, and Ravens Speaking Awareness to the Middle Path, silkscreen, First Arts, 7 October 2021, Lot 3.