About —
The emergence of four indispensable indigenous artists
The inclusion of contemporary indigenous art in the multifaceted landscape of Canadian art is a relatively recent development. Norval Morrisseau, often celebrated as the grandfather of indigenous art in Canada, erupted on the contemporary art scene in 1962 with a highly successful exhibition in a private gallery in Toronto.
The works in Voices were selected with the aim of highlighting often-muted voices excluded from the institutional vision of art in the 1960s and 1970s. Only in the 1980s and particularly the 1990s did Canadian museums start to produce major exhibitions based on a non-Eurocentric vision of Canadian art.
Davidialuk Alasua Amittu, Ashoona Pitseolak, Joe Talirunili and Norval Morrisseau, through their work in the decades preceding this transformation, laid the groundwork for what would become an essential perspective in the contemporary understanding of Canadian art.
Image in the banner:
© Norval Morrisseau (1932 – 2007), Salmon, oil on canvas. Donation by Charles F. Johnson.
Photo: Musée d’art de Joliette