Daphe Odjig, CM OBC RCA
Nishnaabe-Neshnabe (Odawa-Potawatomi), (1919-2016), 'Ksan Singers,' circa 1984, oil on canvas, signed with copyright symbol lower left, titled along the upper stretcher verso.
height 28in, width 24in
Footnotes:
Accompanied by the catalog for the artist's 2007-2010 traveling retrospective exhibition: Devine, Bonnie, et al., The Drawings and Paintings of Daphne Odjig: A Retrospective Exhibition, 2007, National Gallery of Canada (in collaboration with the Art Gallery of Sudbury)

Provenance
Purchased by the present owner at the Vancouver Planetarium, BC, 1986
Property of a Canadian Collector

A highly respected, feminist Anishnaabe artist, Daphne Odjig (1919-2016) made an important contribution to contemporary Indigenous art in Canada. Born at Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve, Manitoulin Island, Ontario in 1919, she was a largely self-taught artist whose early work was strongly influenced by Picasso. Her first solo exhibitions, which took place in the 1960s, introduced her work to a wider public. In the 1970s, along with six other Indigenous artists including Alex Janvier, Norval Morrisseau and others, Odjig founded the Professional Native Indian Artists Inc., a collective whose aim was to encourage the development of Indigenous art in Canada. Influenced by the murals and large paintings that she produced at this time, her work became bolder and less tied to the Woodland style of painting. The present lot exemplifies Odjig's personal form of abstraction as it had evolved by the early 1980s with its stylized figures and use of circular motifs.

'Once dubbed Picasso's Grandmother by Norval Morrisseau, Odjig has been associated with Cubism, Surrealism, Abstraction and Expressionism. Yet with her work firmly rooted in her own heritage, she was never fully accepted into any Western artistic movements. Her response was, 'Reject Native work certainly if you feel it doesn't measure up to what you consider fine art to be, but for God's sake, don't critique my work on the sole basis of 'too much' or 'too little' Indian content.'' Ahlberg Yohe, Jill and Greeves, Teri, editors, Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists, 2019, Minneapolis Institute of Art, p.288