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Some thirty years after its completion, Norval Morrisseau’s six-panel painting entitled Man Changing into Thunderbird (1977) continues to resonate with power. For Morrisseau, the experience of creating such works is intensely spiritual. His career of nearly fifty years has been marked by transformations that have earned him the title shaman artist. It is probably no coincidence that at the age of thirteen he was given the name Copper Thunderbird by a medicine woman. (The Thunderbird is a powerful Anishnaabe (Ojibwa) deity.) The National Gallery of Canada pays homage to this rare individual with the presentation of Norval Morrisseau – Shaman Artist, its first solo exhibition of a First Nations artist.

The show chronicles Morrisseau’s search for a style of art that would integrate his deepening interpretation of ancient Anishnaabe spirituality within a contemporary art form. His desire to create a bridge of understanding between native and non-native cultures is demonstrated in these highly communicative works, about 60 in all, that appeal to a broad audience without diminishing the integrity of their content. Drawn from the Gallery’s collection and from public and private collections in Canada, the United States, and Israel, many of these works have rarely been on view; some have never been exhibited.  

Organized chronologically, they include drawings, painted objects, and paintings – including early works painted on such unorthodox surfaces as birchbark and cardboard through to the intensely colourful and large-scale canvases that characterize his maturing form. Viewers encounter an intriguing plethora of images representing animals and plants of the earth, spiritual creatures inhabiting heavenly and underworldly realms, as well as ancestors and human intermediaries who communicate with the spirit world.

The show documents Morriseau’s progression as an artist, charting the creative and spiritual journey that would contribute to his unique style of painting known as “Woodland” or “Legend” painting, now called Anishnaabe painting, of which he is the originator. In works that evoke ancient symbolic etchings on sacred birchbark scrolls and pictographic renderings of spiritual creatures, Morrisseau “reveals” the souls of humans and animals through his unique “x-ray” style of imaging: Sinewy black “spirit” lines emanate, surround, and link the figures. Skeletal elements and internal organs are visible within the figures’ delineated segments. Saturated with startling, often contrasting colours, such paintings appear to vibrate under the viewer’s gaze.

In addition to Man Changing into Thunderbird, highlights of the show include personally revealing works – the two-panel canvas entitled The Storyteller: the Artist and his Grandfather (1978), Self Portrait Devoured by Demons (1964), Artist and Shaman Between Two Worlds (1980) – as well as works that address the negative impacts of colonization on First Nations, such as The Gift (1975).

This landmark exhibition affirms Morrisseau’s reputation as a modern-day master who has achieved national and international acclaim. It also reminds us why this shaman-artist inspired three generations of Anishnaabe to pursue painting and print as a means to recovering their heritage. Like Man Changing into Thunderbird, Morrisseau’s unique contribution to art will resonate for generations to come.

A fully illustrated catalogue, a bilingual Bell audioguide, and a series of lectures and family activities will complement this exhibition.

The exhibition is organized by the National Gallery of Canada. Supported by the Founding Partners' Circle Endowment Fund of the National Gallery of Canada Foundation.