Two art fraud rings in a remote Canadian town produced thousands of paintings sold in galleries as works by Norval Morrisseau, Canada’s most celebrated Indigenous artist.
Tim Tait put two and two together when he went to sell some of his paintings to a law firm in downtown Thunder Bay two decades ago. He spotted one of his other works already there – but with someone else’s signature on it.
And not just anyone’s. It read “Copper Thunderbird”, or “Picasso of the North”. Real name Norval MorrisseauCanada’s most famous indigenous artist whose original style shattered the idea of art in the country and made its way into its most important museum.
“I called the police,” said Mr. Tait, a local artist in Thunder Bay, Ontario, who is also Indigenous. “All they did was laugh at me and make fun of me over the phone.”
“And I said, ‘When it comes out, I’ll sing like a bird.'”
By the time it all came to light – decades later – two criminal rings in Thunder Bay had made thousands of bogus Norval Morrisseaus that together had brought in millions of dollars across Canada. The forgeries, which included rebranded paintings by Mr Tait and other indigenous artists, hit the walls of the top of the country galleries and universities. Pensioners bought them teachers at school, billionaire art collectors and even ia rock star.
Thunder Bay ringleaders pleaded guilty to fraud last year and are now in prison. Thunder Bay — an isolated town on the north shore of Lake Superior that drug dealers from Toronto turned into Canadian murder capital — also emerged as the epicenter of the largest art fraud in the country’s history.
The rulings come a quarter of a century after the authenticity of many Morrisseaus was first publicly questioned – and only after a series of unusual events linking the rock star; the cold random murder of a teenager; his aged, grieving parents; and hard-boiled homicide detectives initially skeptical of the art scam. The detectives eventually mastered the finer points of Morrisseau’s Woodlands art style.
“None of us knew anything about art,” Det. Jason Rybak of the Thunder Bay Police Department said during a recent drive through the city, whose muted colors were further washed out by fresh snow and a cloud-filled sky.
Recalling the first raid on the ringleader’s house, Detective Rybak, who led the investigation, said: “The next thing you know, we have these pictures. And we’re like, ‘Oh yeah, now what?'”
The police knew about Morrisseau after all. A member of the Ojibwe First Nation, he was born on a reservation northeast of Thunder Bay. But Morrisseau has long been a fixture on the city’s streets selling his artwork.
Morrisseau became famous for creating the Woodland school of painting, a fusion of Ojibwa and European styles. His paintings touched on indigenous beliefs, depicting people, animals, and the physical and spiritual world in bright colors and X-ray-like motifs.
The Canadian art establishment has long considered the works of Indigenous artists to be ethnography rather than fine art. But Morrisseau’s work changed that starting in the 1960s, as he gained recognition in Toronto, the United States and France, where he became known as the Picasso of the North.
In 2006, a year before his death at the age of 75, National Gallery of Canadathe most important museum in the country, held a retrospective of Morrisseau’s art — the first time a contemporary indigenous artist was in such a spotlight. But the tributes were marred by media reports of the spread of dubious fake solutions. Morrisseau himself spoke out against fraud and identified forgeries with his forged signature.
The stories never went anywhere because gallerists, auctioneers and others with a financial stake in Morrisseau forgeries vehemently denied the existence of widespread fraud, said Jonathan Sommer, a lawyer who represented three people who sued galleries for selling them fakes.
Many wealthy collectors were too embarrassed to admit they had bought fakes, Mr. Sommer said. But one client was a rock star: Kevin Hearn, keyboardist for Naked ladiesCanadian band that has sold more than 15 million albums.
Mr Hearn, a former chorister, loved the “bold colors and black lines” in Morrisseau’s paintings, whose work was influenced by stained glass in church windows. In 2005, he bought a painting of animals in a circle on green canvas called “Mother Earth Spirit Energy,” paying C$20,000, about $16,500 at the time, from a Toronto gallery that convinced him of its authenticity.
After learning a few years later that it was a fake, Mr. Hearn successfully sued the gallery even as he endured online attacks from people threatened with financial loss for exposing the fake Morrisseaus.
“I was afraid for my family,” Mr. Hearn said in an interview. “They have been posting photos of my special needs daughter online saying I am a bad father for starting this lawsuit.”
Mr. Hearn also supported the making of a documentary, “There Are No Fakes,” about the wider fraud involving Morrisseau.
“I feel that the relationship between the artist’s work and the people who take that work into their hearts is sacred,” he said.
The documentary contained information about Gary Lamont, a Thunder Bay man convicted of sexual assault who was also a small-time drug dealer and suspect in the 1984 slaying of a 17-year-old, according to police. Scott Dove.
When Scott’s parents learned that he was mentioned in the documentary, they contacted the investigator who investigated the case: Detective Rybak, who said that Mr. Lamont still suspected of murder.
Detective Rybak, 49, has spent his career dealing with murder and drugs. When the detective called Mr. Hearn and his lawyer, Mr. Sommer, was focused on the cold case and showed little interest in the bogus Morrisseaus, Mr. Sommer. But that changed when the detective became aware of a potentially strong case against Mr Lamont – for art fraud.
“When he got him,” Mr. Sommer said, “he became like a pit bull.”
Detective Rybak and two colleagues, Det. Sean Verescak and Det. Kevin Bradley, said they spent their investigation reconstructing Morrisseau’s life so they could understand how and what he painted, and how he signed his works.
Morrisseau, who was sexually abused at the Roman Catholic residential school he was sent to at age 6, according to biographies, struggled with alcoholism for much of his life and, at one point, was homeless in Vancouver.
“He had many demons,” said Detective Rybak.
After international success, Morrisseau returned to Thunder Bay in the 1970s.
It was a blue-collar town where people worked in paper mills and grain mills. Toronto was a 16-hour drive away, a place the kids had first visited on field trips in eighth grade. Few in Thunder Bay were aware of Morrisseau’s accomplishments. The locals simply knew him as an indigenous artist who hung around the city center offering his drawings in front of the bank in exchange for money, food or alcohol.
During one winter storm, Peter Kantola was driving when Morrisseau appeared out of nowhere and stopped him. The artist kept his hands deep in the pockets of his flimsy jacket.
“He was half frozen, the snow dried all over his face,” recalled Mr. Kantola, 84, retired high school science teacher.
Mr. Kantola tied up Morrisseau, and after that he would do it whenever he came across him. Morrisseau told him Mr. Kantola, gave two large paintings that now adorn his living room.
Morrisseau also befriended Gary Lamont, the future art fraud ringleader, in the 1970s, according to Lamont’s guilty plea. During their friendship Mr. Lamont occasionally put Morrisseau in an apartment and covered the rent.
Mr. Lamont’s longtime partner, Linda Tkachyk, would bring the artist money, food and alcohol, her niece Amanda Dalby recalled. Ms Dalby, 40, lived with her aunt and Mr Lamont when she was a child.
On one visit, Morrisseau presented Mrs. Dalby and her sister with a painting.
“He said it would be enough to pay for our schooling,” Ms Dalby said, adding that Mr Lamont later took it.
According to Mr. Lamont’s guilty plea, he began making Morrisseau counterfeits in 2002 and continued until 2015. He was sentenced last December to five years in prison.
At the house where Ms. Dalby was staying, Indigenous artists, including Morrisseau’s nephew, painted non-stop in a tiny room that Mr. Lamont kept locked, she said.
According to his guilty plea, Mr. Lamont also exchanged money and marijuana for pictures of Mr. Taita – a local artist who vowed to sing like a bird and helped expose Mr. Lamont. Mr Tait stopped supplying him with the pictures after he realized they were posing as the Morrisseaus.
“He used me badly,” Mr. Tait said one recent evening as he painted on a large canvas and his granddaughter chased around their apartment. “That was my biggest weakness, drugs. I’m not like that anymore — 20 years in August.”
Hundreds of paintings produced by Indigenous artists were renamed Morrisseau’s signature Cree syllabary — “Copper Thunderbird” — and sold for C$2,000 to C$10,000.
By the end of their investigation, detectives had uncovered a second counterfeiting ring in Thunder Bay. Under his leader, a co-painter named David Voss, mock Morrisseaus were produced on a conveyor belt with Mr. Voss sketching the outlines which were colored by several individuals, each responsible for one shade. Mr Voss pleaded guilty to fraud in June. The Third Circuit case, based in southern Ontario, is still working its way through the courts.
According to detectives, Mr. Lamont used drugs and alcohol to turn Native artists into Morrisseau forgers.
Gil Labine, lawyer Mr. Lamonta, said his client was not a drug dealer, although he supplied drugs to indigenous artists. Mr. Labine added that Mr. Lamont denied any involvement in the 1984 murder.
Artists regularly showed up at the town’s art shop, the Painted Turtle, to take on large orders for Mr. Lamont, owner Lorraine Cull said.
At the end of December, Mr. Lamont appeared with four young men.
“He almost cleaned us of all the canvas we had,” said Mrs. Cull. “I asked him, ‘What are you doing with all this?’ And he said they were Christmas presents for all the artists in the North.”
“And it was after Christmas.”
