NORVAL MORRISSEAU, C.M. (1931-2007) ANISHINAABE (OJIBWE)
Untitled (The Tree of Life), c. 1979
acrylic on kraft paper, 57.25 x 25.75 in (145.4 x 65.4 cm), framed
signed, "ᐅᓴᐊ·ᐱᑯᐱᓀᓯ".

Provenance
Acquired by a Private Collection, Ontario from James R. Stevens, Ahnisnabae Art Gallery, Thunder Bay, Ont.;
by descent in the family.

Untitled (The Tree of Life) depicts a blossoming plant with beautifully coloured leaves and flowers. Set against an unadorned paper ground, Morrisseau’s heavy black lines, decorated to their leafy interiors with joyful colours, is so pure and deliberate that the image borders on abstraction. The stylized vining foliate and simplified floral motifs, however, harken to the distinctive elements of the quillwork and beadwork found on older Anishinaabe clothing and other garments.

Morrisseau’s remarkable control of the brush (and, perhaps, his fingertips) is evidenced in The Tree of Life, where the composition is so fluid that it can only be described as calligraphic. The verticality of the image, the sheet for which is almost 5 ft tall, lends to the sense that the plant pushes upward from the earth, toward an unseen sun and creates a strong, most poetic impression.

References: Androgyny, 1983 is reproduced in Greg A. Hill, et al., Norval Morrisseau: Shaman Artist, (Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 2006, pl. 44, p. 148-9; Observations of the Astral World, c. 1994 illustrated in ibid., pl. 46, p. 152-3; See also Untitled (Astral Planes with Tree of Life), c. 1990s illustrated in ibid., pl. 51, p. 160. See also Children with Tree of Life, reproduced in: Art Canada Institute, Land & Indigenous Worldviews Through the Art of Norval Morrisseau, (s.l. [Toronto?]: s.n, n.d. [2019?], p. 3. For examples of floral and foliate Anishinaabe quill and beadwork, see Ted Brasser, "Bo'jou, Neejee!": Profiles of Canadian Indian Art, (Hull, QC: National Museum of Man, 1976), particularly fig. 101, p. 121 and fig. 174, p. 165.