FROM THUNDER BAY ART GALLERY’S COLLECTION

Artist: Norval Morrisseau

Title: Indian Woman with Bear Offspring

Date: 1968

Medium: Acrylic on pen and paper

Dimensions: 31 3/16 x 22 3/16 in.

Gift of Bill and Cathy MacDonald, 2020

In May we celebrate motherhood in all its forms. Indian Woman with Bear Offspring is a small painting by artist Norval Morrisseau (1932– 2007). It shows two bear cubs nursing at the breast of Mother Earth, depicted as a human female figure with long black hair. In Legends of My People, The Great Ojibway (1965), a book of stories illustrated and told by Morrisseau, he said, “My people believe the earth to be their mother and that we are children of the earth. We are all one spirit.”

This image recalls a pivotal event in Morrisseau’s life and career. In 1967, Morrisseau was one of several Indigenous artists commissioned to paint large murals for the Indians of Canada Pavilion at Expo ‘67 in Montreal. Morrisseau’s design was called Mother Earth and showed a female figure nursing two bear cubs. The imagery was deemed too explicit for the public and censored by government officials. Morrisseau refused to change his work and walked away from the project. It’s possible that if he had been able to create his original mural, it would have looked much like this small painting. In the end, Morrisseau’s friend and fellow artist Carl Ray finished an altered version of the mural featuring a child figure and bear cub who were not nursing. This controversial event brought new awareness to Indigenous art and activism in Canada in the 1960s.

The Thunder Bay Art Gallery has ten new paintings by Morrisseau currently up in the gallery as part of The World We Know: New Acquisitions to the Permanent Collection, which runs April 8–June 12.

“My people believe the earth to be their mother and that we are children of the earth. We are all one spirit.”