Masters of Indigenous Art

In recent years the celebration of Indigenous art has been at the forefront of the Canadian art world. The dedication and perseverance of the pioneers of the Indigenous art movement have made way for the generations that have followed. These incredible artists had the talent, the vision and a strong will to bring their culture, their stories to the world. In this exhibition we acknowledge and celebrate their legacy and their extraordinary contribution to the arts.

 

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Rose Bird

Artist: Alex Janvier
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas includes signed book
Size: 48 x 96 Inches
Code No.: MA01
Price: Please inquire

              
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Alex Janvier is a significant Canadian Indigenous artist, and as such has influenced many generations of  artists.  Janvier was selected to represent Canada in a Canadian/Chinese Cultural Exchange in 1985. When he returned home Alex was inspired by the beautiful gardens in Beijing to create several works, including “Rose Bird”.  These paintings are considered to be among some of his best works.
Rose Bird’s white background provides a stark contrast for the colourful image with a graceful flowing movement.

 

Thunderbird Woman

Artist: Daphne Odjig
Medium: Acrylic on Paper includes original painting, framed limited edition print and book
Size: 28 x 23 Inches
Code No.: MA02
Price: Please inquire

              
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One of Daphne Odjig’s most iconic paintings.  This work has been reproduced in a limited edition series, and has been used in many of Daphne’s publications to represent the strength of women.  It was painted as a 32 x 25 ft mural for Winnipeg’s Wall to Wall Mural and Cultural Festival, in partnership with the Winnipeg Art Gallery.
“The Thunderbird Woman represents a figure of transformation, half-woman and half-bird. It is an icon, a symbolic message of hope and matriarchal strength,” said Jaimie Issac, curator of Indigenous and contemporary art at the Winnipeg Art Gallery.

Ojibway Beaver

Artist: Norval Morrisseau
Medium: Acrylic on Masonite
Size: 40 x 30 Inches
Code No.: MA03
Price: $29,500.00 Framed

              
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Morrisseau’s use of colour and his choice of palette follows much the same as his use of symbols and images.  He applies acrylic with brushes or his fingers.  He almost never mixes colours, not even white, preferring to apply the pigments straight from the tube.  Colour itself is one of Morrisseau’s most symbolic resources.  He tells us that it takes on important meaning in the total consciousness of the native peoples of Canada, it mirrors that other inner reality, the world of the astral or soul plane.  Colour, it seems, transmits its harmony through nature to the physical or material world.      (Lister Sinclair/Jack Pollock – Morrisseau, 1979)

Emanation

Artist: Jane Ash Poitras
Medium: Mixed Media on Canvas
Size: 48 x 44 Inches
Code No.: MA4
Price: $29,500.00

              
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A celebrated Canadian artist, Jane Ash Poitras has significantly influenced the development of a new visual vocabulary for First Nations perspectives in contemporary art.  Her unique style combines representational strategies of postmodern art—collage, layering, overpainting and incorporation of found objects—with a deep commitment to the politics and issues common to Indigenous peoples.

Eternal Conflict

Artist: Daphne Odjig
Medium: Acrylic on Paper
Size: 23 x 35 Inches
Code No.: MA05
Price: $29,500.00 Framed

              
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In 1968, “Eternal Conflict” was one of the Daphne Odjig’s first paintings that was influenced by Anishnaabe myth and storytelling.  The painting was used as the image for one of the first silkscreens Daphne produced in the early 1970s, launching her journey into printmaking.  In around that time Daphne and her husband Chester Beavon moved to Winnipeg where Daphne opened a small print shop, Odjig Indian Prints of Canada. A few years later the shop morphed into a bonafide art gallery, one of the first in Canada to represent solely Indigenous art.  The Warehouse Gallery, as Daphne had named it, later became the meeting place for the Indigenous Group of Seven.
Included with this painting is a copy of the book Four Decades of Prints, Daphne Odjig, illustrating this painting as the example of her earliest print work.

Ojibway Grizzly

Artist: Norval Morrisseau
Medium: Acrylic on Handmade Paper
Size: 32 x 42 Inches
Code No.: MA06
Price: $29,500.00 Framed

              
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In the late 1970s/early 1980s Norval Morrisseau walked into the Bearclaw Gallery with several paintings on handmade paper rolled up under his arm.  He said to the owner, Agnes Bugera, “I want to sell these paintings.”
What followed was a wonderful and humorous interaction between Norval and Agnes.  It solidified a friendship between them for years to come.
The painting sold in the 1980s and has come back to grace the walls of the gallery once again, some forty years later.

Singing to the Elders

Artist: Daphne Odjig
Medium: Watercolour on Paper
Size: 30 x 22 Inches
Code No.: MA07
Price: $26,900.00 Framed

              
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Daphne Odjig has developed a distinct style based on the beautifully abstracted human form.  The visual motif central to her work is the circle, which to the Ojibwa signifies completion and perfection and is symbolic to women.  This motif is characterized by undulating, rhythmic lines, often heavily outlined, enclosing local colour in soft harmonious shades.  Her subject matter deals with human relationships in the context of Native culture, the importance of grandparents, the function of the family unit, and the universal theme of mother and child.  Today the continuing tradition of the Woodland Artists seems to be assured in contemporary Canadian art.

Lotus at West Lake

Artist: Alex Janvier
Medium: Gouache on Paper
Size: 30 x 22 Inches
Code No.: MA08
Price: $19,500.00 Framed
SOLD

As with “Rose Bird”, the next two paintings both derived their influence from Alex’s journey and experiences in East Asia.  Alex’s ongoing love of horticulture allowed for him to experience the exquisite mastery of the botanical gardens in Beijing, China.  In an interview with NGC Magazine, the artist spoke about the formal gardens that inspired the works: “You get the sight, the smell, and it attacks all your senses.”

These works on white backgrounds feature Alex’s articulate brush strokes at his very best.  His vibrant colours and distinct curved lines gracefully reach to all directions, guiding ones vision to explore the work in its entirety.

 

Meridian Gate

Artist: Alex Janvier
Medium: Gouache on Paper
Size: 30 x 22 Inches
Code No.: MA9
Price: $19,500.00 Framed
SOLD

“In 1960 the world wasn’t ready for a First Nations artist interested in contemporary painting.  Whatever work I produced was a surprise to most people.  It has been a long trail and I’m glad I did what I did.  I think I had good fortune not to give up or give in.  I am very grateful to those who did take me seriously and supported this new energy in the art world.  I have accomplished more than I ever dreamed.  This is just part of my story, the rest is in the painting!”
– Alex Janvier

April – New Year (part of the Calendar series)

Artist: Roy Thomas
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas includes original 2002 calendar
Size: 28 x 30 Inches Framed
Code No.: MA10
Price: $19,500.00 Framed
SOLD

Roy produced a suite of 12 images in 2002 called Time and Life.  This series was made into a calendar and was one of the last major series that Roy painted.  Roy said of this painting, “In spring, the elements are waking – it is a New Year and all creatures are giving birth to young ones.”
“This (series) was a last gift from a gifted artist.  Roy Thomas was a master of Ahnisnabae art.  He was also the embodiment of its promise, its challenges and its spirit. “                                         – Elizabeth McLuhan

 

Untitled – Canada Goose

Artist: Benjamin Chee Chee
Medium: Acrylic on Paper
Size: 22 x 30 Inches
Code No.: MA11
Price: $15,000.00 Framed

              
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During his brief four-year career, Benjamin Chee Chee rose to national prominence with strong and elegant reinterpretations of the structural minimalism common in traditional Ojibwa art and the Woodland School with which he was associated.     Both Chee Chee’s large abstract paintings and smaller, more representational line drawings aimed in part to invoke the essence of neguk, or Canadian geese, and remain as testament after his untimely death to the power of Anishnaabe visual economy.

Untitled, 1973

Artist: Alex Janvier
Medium: Gouache on Paper
Size: 22 x 15 Inches
Code No.: MA21
Price: $14,500.00 Framed

              
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Alex Janvier’s style is abstract and decidedly modernist. His blazing palette and radiating forms reflect the spiritual traditions of his ancestors. His abstract linear work is characterized by whiplashing pools of colour on negative space.
Janvier helped bring together Indigenous artists such as Norval Morrisseau and Bill Reid for the Indians of Canada Pavilion at Expo 67, where he contributed a mural. Janvier returned to Alberta in 1968 to teach adult classes at the Saddle Lake Indian School near St. Paul and Alberta Newstart Inc. in Fort Chipewyan. Late in 1971, he decided to paint full-time.
In 1973, he was a founding member of the Professional Native Indian Artists Inc., a group of seven First Nations artists seeking to market their own work. They are often referred to as the Indian Group of Seven.

Existence of Lifeforms

Artist: Norval Morrisseau
Medium: Acrylic on Paper
Size: 22 x 30 Inches
Code No.: MA12
Price: $12,500.00 Framed

              
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“My art speaks and will continue to speak, transcending barriers of nationality, of language and of other forces that may be divisive, fortifying the greatness of the spirit which has always been the foundation of the Great Ojibway.”   – Norval Morrisseau

 

 

 

Greeting the Sunrise

Artist: Joseph Sanchez
Medium: Mixed Media on Linen
Size: 37.5 x 82 Inches
Code No.: MA20
Price: $12,000.00

              
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Meeting Daphne Odjig in 1971 is the reason I am an artist today, as a mentor and peer she encouraged my talent and coached my ability as an artist and art professional, resulting in the amazing career I have as an artist, activist and art professional. Though mainly self taught, the opportunity to work with many artists and art professionals as a collaborator, assistant, exhibition designer, curator, and museum director provided many experiences, skills and valuable critique. I especially acknowledge my two mentors, Daphne Odjig and Philip C. Curtis, (founder of the Phoenix Art Museum) who have been essential to my success as an artist.

Untitled

Artist: Joseph Sanchez
Medium: Watercolour on Paper
Size: 30 x 22 Inches
Code No.: MA13
Price: $19,500.00 Framed

              
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This painting was exhibited in 1975 at Joseph Sanchez’s first show the Warehouse Gallery in Winnipeg.  The Warehouse Gallery was owned by celebrated artist Daphne Odjig, and was the  meeting place of the artists that formed the Native Professional Indian Artists Inc., also known as the Indigenous Group of Seven.  Jackson Beardy, Eddy Cobiness, Alex Janvier, Norval Morrisseau, Daphne Odjig, Cary Ray and Joseph Sanchez were the founding members of the group.
Joseph says of this painting, “I believe the work is a look inside the mind of the artist with the spirits showing their faces and with my wife Ann as the figure holding it all together and the artist with his heart pierced by an arrow of pain, love, and ecstasy.”
Included with this painting is the large PNIA Inc catalogue signed by Joseph and a photograph of Joseph in the gallery in 1975 hanging this very painting on the wall of the Warehouse Gallery.

Power of Yucca (from Consecrated Medicine)

Artist: Jane Ash Poitras
Medium: Mixed Media on Canvas
Size: 30 x 20 Inches
Code No.: MA14
Price: $8,700.00

              
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In 2005 the Thunderbay Art Gallery featured one of the most important exhibition in artist Jane Ash Poitras career.   “Consecrated Medicine” was an exhibit centered around Jane’s immense interest in Ethnobotany.  With a masters degree in printmaking from Columbia University and a degree in Microbiology, Jane brought together her knowledge from the arts and the sciences to share her insights.
“There are many of us who can benefit from the guidance and generous sharing of vision by the remarkable wise-woman, artist, shaman advocate.  Poitras has never shied away from what was difficult either in her subject matter or in how she approaches her work technically.  Consecrated Medicine is in reality a healing offering given by artist to the viewer.”                                                   – Virginia Eichhorn, Curator

Featured in the exhibition catalogue, “Power of the Yucca”, is explained by Jane Ash Poitras:  “Masato is a sacred drink made from the yucca plant.  It is made by the tribe for their survival.    The children of the tribe, from birth to childhood to departure, take part in the ritual of the Yucca.”

The Lord’s Prayer

Artist: Carl Beam
Medium: Mixed Media on Paper
Size: 30 x 22 Inches
Code No.: MA16
Price: $6,800.00 Framed

              
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Carl Beam was a was an internationally acclaimed contemporary Canadian artist of Ojibwe descent, whose work will survive as a milestone in the development of the Aboriginal voice within the context of the presence of Canada on the international art scene. He was a big man; he had big ideas and a big heart.

Final Notice

Artist: Carl Beam
Medium: Mixed Media on Paper
Size: 30 x 22 Inches
Code No.: MA15
Price: $6,800.00 Framed

              
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Beam told stories with pictures. His works can be read as morality plays juxtaposing long held perceptions with challenging alternatives. His well-known images, la pieta, an embryo, Abraham Lincoln, Sitting Bull, a crow, Einstein among others, were cultural markers overlaid with references to time and space. With a linear pattern or formal grid, he tried to visually create the fourth dimension in his work, a spiritual space inhabited by a quiet intellect. That he was an artist of Indigenous and white heritage added to the scope of the complex subjects he chose.

 

 

Ojibwa-The Teacher & The Pupil

Artist: Saul Williams
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas
Size: 28 x 22 Inches
Code No.: MA17
Price: $6,500.00 Framed
SOLD

Saul Williams is a Canadian Indigenous painter and graphic artist. Born in North Caribou Lake, Ontario, Canada in 1954, his family moved to Weagamow Lake to live on the North Caribou Lake First Nation Reserve, where he would become a Band member.

As a Woodland painter, Williams creates rich surfaces, using white as positive colour and not just background.  As a young man Saul was heavily influenced by Norval Morrisseau and Roy Thomas, but Saul’s stylistic images are uniquely his own.  His figures are complex, his colours rich, and his application of paint is remarkably articulate.

He Came Upon A Midnight Clear

Artist: Joseph Sanchez
Medium: Pastel on Paper
Size: 36 x 24 Inches
Code No.: MA18
Price: $6,000.00

              
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In 1972 the gatherings at Odjig Indian Prints at 331 Donald Street were the seed that resulted in Professional Native Artist, Inc. aka The Native Group of Seven, officially incorporated in February of 1974. Although many more artists were invited only seven attended the meetings in Winnipeg that created the group, they were Daphne Odjig, Norval Morrisseau, Jackson Beardy, Alex Janvier, Carl Ray, Eddy Cobiness and, American Joseph M. Sanchez. This lead to exhibitions with the group in Ottawa, Montreal, Vancouver, Toronto, Winnipeg and London, England.

Untitled – Couple

Artist: Joseph Sanchez
Medium: Pastel on Paper
Size: 36 x 24 Inches
Code No.: MA19
Price: $6,000.00

              
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A career in the museum world and my studio in Scottsdale, Arizona lasted 22 years when I married Margaret Burke and moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1999.In 2002, I volunteered at the Institute of American Indian Arts Museum, was hired as exhibition coordinator and went on to become Interim Director and Chief Curator for what is now called the Museum of Contemporary Native Art. Receiving the Allan Houser Memorial Award in 2006 for artistic excellence and community involvement is the highlight of a long career of artist groups and community activity.

Eagle & Serpent

Artist: Eddie Cobiness
Medium: Acrylic on Paper
Size: 23 x 16 Inches
Code No.: MA22
Price: $5,800.00 Framed

              
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“To me, being an artist is in itself life’s greatest gift which is an honour and to which I am greatly thankful.  For many years I have worked as an artist, enjoyed it and considered it a great privilege and duty to pass on my talent to others, artists yet unborn, dreams yet unrealized.”
Eddy Cobiness and his art helped bring First Nations art to the forefront of the Canadian and international art worlds. His work and legacy continue to create spaces for First Nations artists. Cobiness’s innovative paintings and seminal style are highly regarded today and continue to be sought after by collectors.

Portfolio of Six Serigraphs

Artist: Norval Morrisseau
Medium: Six Silkscreen Prints, includes 1979 Morrisseau Book
Size: 24 x 18 Inches Each
Code No.: MA23
Price: $4,950.00

Portfolio containing six limited edition serigraphs printed in colour in 1979

Each silkscreen print is signed in pencil, numbered in an edition of 350 and set in an embossed portfolio.  The set of six prints include an
edition of publication “The Art of Norval Morrisseau” by Lister Sinclair and Jack Pollock published by Methuen, Toronto/New York in1979.

Famine

Artist: Saul Williams
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas
Size: 24 x 20 Inches
Code No.: MA24
Price: $3,950.00 Framed

Bittern

Artist: Eddie Cobiness
Medium: Acrylic on Paper
Size: 17.5 x 24 Inches
Code No.: MA25
Price: $3,950.00 Framed

Eddy Cobiness was a Treaty Ojibway artist who was born in 1933 in Warroad, Minnesota and raised on the Buffalo Point Reserve in Eastern Manitoba.  He began painting in oils in 1944 and became recognized as one of the members of a unique group of artists called the Professional Native Indian Artists Inc., also known as the“Native Group of Seven”.  This group of seven artists pioneered the Canadian native art movement in the 1960’s. Understanding Cobiness’ art is on the one hand made easy as all his work is endowed with an explicit clearness that speaks in no uncertain terms, yet there is something mystical in most of his paintings that makes one want to investigate further, extracting the total message, obvious and hidden.

 

 

Fire

Artist: Joseph Sanchez
Medium: Acrylic and Canvas
Size: 20 Inches in Diameter
Code No.: JS93
Price: $2,800.00

Water

Artist: Joseph Sanchez
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas
Size: 20 Inches in Diameter
Code No.: JS94
Price: $2,800.00
SOLD

Northwest Coast Shaman

Artist: Jane Ash Poitras
Medium: Mixed Media on Wood
Size: 16 x 12 Inches
Code No.: MA26
Price: $2,690.00 Framed
SOLD

Turtle, Bear, Loons, Moose & Fish

Artist: Roy Thomas
Medium: Acrylic on Paper
Size: 14 x 15 Inches
Code No.: MA29
Price: $2,500.00 Framed

Loons & Fish

Artist: Roy Thomas
Medium: Acrylic on Birchbark Basket
Code No.: MA28
Price: $2,500.00

Fish on Birchbark

Artist: Roy Thomas
Medium: Acrylic on Birchbark
Size: 9 x 16 Inches
Code No.: MA27
Price: $2,500.00 Framed

Two Bears

Artist: Roy Thomas
Medium: Acrylic on Paper
Size: 7.5 x 5.5 Inches
Code No.: MA48
Price: $1,500.00 Framed

Pow Wow Dancers

Artist: Daphne Odjig
Medium: Coloured Pencil on Paper
Size: 9 x 8 Inches
Code No.: 0-146
Price: $2,400.00 Framed

Summer Time

Artist: Daphne Odjig
Medium: Coloured Pencil on Paper
Size: 8 x 5.5 Inches
Code No.: 0-137
Price: $2,150.00 Framed

Phantoms in the Nite

Artist: Daphne Odjig
Medium: Coloured Pencil on Paper
Size: 7 x 6.5 Inches
Code No.: DO-008
Price: $2,150.00 Framed

Cathedral Choir

Artist: Daphne Odjig
Medium: Coloured Pencil on Paper
Size: 7 x 6.5 Inches
Code No.: DO-009
Price: $2,150.00 Framed

A Joyous Homecoming

Artist: Daphne Odjig
Medium: Coloured Pencil on Paper
Size: 7 x 6.5 Inches
Code No.: DO-010
Price: $2,150.00 Framed

Untitled – Five Figures

Artist: Daphne Odjig
Medium: Coloured Pencil on Paper
Size: 12 x 9 Inches
Code No.: DO-037
Price: $2,125.00 Framed

Untitled – Sunset Through the Trees

Artist: Daphne Odjig
Medium: Coloured Pencil on Paper
Size: 12 x 9 Inches
Code No.: DO-040
Price: $2,125.00 Framed

Off To The Party

Artist: Daphne Odjig
Medium: Coloured Pencil on Paper
Size: 12 x 9 Inches
Code No.: DO-053
Price: $2,125.00 Framed

Reflecting

Artist: Daphne Odjig
Medium: Coloured Pencil on Paper
Size: 10 x 7 Inches
Code No.: DO-015
Price: $1,850.00 Framed

The Trek

Artist: Daphne Odjig
Medium: Coloured Pencil on Paper
Size: 10 x 7 Inches
Code No.: DO-013
Price: $1,850.00 Framed

They Love to Dance

Artist: Daphne Odjig
Medium: Coloured Pencil on Paper
Size: 7.5 x 5.5 Inches
Code No.: 0-145
Price: $1,895.00 Framed

Nesting Birds

Artist: Daphne Odjig
Medium: Coloured Pencil on Paper
Size: 6 x 5 Inches
Code No.: #80
Price: $1,650.00 Framed

Together We Stand

Artist: Daphne Odjig
Medium: Coloured Pencil on Paper
Size: 6 x 5 Inches
Code No.: #89
Price: $1,650.00 Framed

Untitled – Figures, Thunderbird & Drum

Artist: Daphne Odjig
Medium: Graphite Pencil on Paper
Size: 12 x 9 Inches
Code No.: DO-004
Price: $2,250.00

Together

Artist: Daphne Odjig
Medium: Coloured Pencil on Paper
Size: 12 x 9 Inches
Code No.: DO-036
Price: $1,850.00

Old Man River

Artist: Daphne Odjig
Medium: Coloured Pencil on Paper
Size: 10 x 7 Inches
Code No.: DO-023
Price: $1,600.00

The Mask

Artist: Daphne Odjig
Medium: Coloured Pencil on Paper
Size: 10 x 7 Inches
Code No.: DO-021
Price: $1,600.00

Energy of Earth & Sky

Artist: Daphne Odjig
Medium: Coloured Pencil on Paper
Size: 6 x 5 Inches
Code No.: #0161
Price: $1,425.00