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Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: NORVAL MORRISSEAU, C.M. (1931-2007) ANISHINAABE (OJIBWE), Mother of Turtles, early-mid 1970s

NORVAL MORRISSEAU, C.M. (1931-2007) ANISHINAABE (OJIBWE)

Mother of Turtles, early-mid 1970s
acrylic on paper heavy wove watercolour paper, 24 x 36 in (61 x 91.4 cm)
signed, "ᐅᓴᐊ·ᐱᑯᐱᓀᓯ";
titled in graphite in an unknown hand, verso, "Mother of Turtles".

LOT 85
ESTIMATE: $6,000 — $9,000
PRICE REALIZED: $6,000.00
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Executed in the early-mid 1970s, this acrylic on paper work ostensibly belongs to a body of work by Morrisseau that is sometimes referred to as his “erotic” series. Although in...
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Executed in the early-mid 1970s, this acrylic on paper work ostensibly belongs to a body of work by Morrisseau that is sometimes referred to as his “erotic” series. Although in the present work it is difficult to overlook the substantial nature of the figure's breasts, the work shows little overt eroticism as we understand it in the Occidental world. Rather, the woman’s femininity may be understood to represent the fertile, natural world itself. Using black formlines to delineate the shape of the figure in profile, the interior of her body, using Morrisseau’s “x-ray” technique, is divided into three registers ornamented in assured strokes of a sonorous palette. At the centre, short clustered lines surround the figure's heart to indicate its beat. The woman’s long black hair flows loosely around her body, which too is a great, incisive curve of great vitality, as she darts through the water.

References: For a work with a similar composition, see the figure of Eva Quan, Jack Pollock’s assistant, in Some of my Friends, 1976 reproduced in Lister Sinclair and Jack Pollock, The Art of Norval Morrisseau, (Toronto: Methuen Publications, 1979), p. 130; For a similarly “erotic” work of a female mother figure, see Mother of All Serpents, 1968, reproduced in Greg Hill, et. al, Norval Morrisseau: Shaman Artist, (Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 2006), p. 122, cat. 24
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Provenance

Private Collection, USA;
by descent to the present Private Collection, Rhode Island, USA.
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The main office of First Arts Premiers Inc. is located on the ancestral and traditional territories of the Mississaugas of the Credit, Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee, and Huron-Wendat, the original owners and custodians of this land.  Today, it is home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples.

 

 

 

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