Additional Images

Provenance:

Acquired directly from the artist by The Pollock Gallery Ltd., Toronto, ON
Kinsman Robinson Galleries, Toronto, ON
Private Collection, Ontario

Note:

In Shaman and Apprentice, two figures—one crowned with a bird-like animal—are closely intertwined, and appear engaged in an apparent transfer of power. The figures’ tongues protrude from their mouths, resting in close proximity, a characteristic often associated with an exchange of otherworldly energy in historic Woodlands iconography.

Although known throughout his career as a gifted colourist, Morrisseau’s work in the late 1970s was becoming more vivid. Informed by traditions that acknowledge the capacity of material representations to effect spiritual interactions, the artist has explained his use of colour: “we can learn how to heal people with colour…My art reminds a lot of people of what they are…Many times people tell me that I’ve cured them of something, whatever’s ailing them…It was the colour of the painting that did that.”[1]

In the mid-1970s, Morrisseau had entered the mainstream. His first sold-out exhibition at the Pollock Gallery was in 1962, over fifteen years before Shaman and Apprentice was painted. His work had by this time entered major institutional collections, including the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, The Glenbow Museum in Calgary, and the Museum of History in Gatineau, Quebec. Morrisseau would be awarded the Order of Canada the same year he painted Shaman and Apprentice–an artist at the height of his powers.

[1] Norval Morrisseau, Travels to the House of Invention (Toronto: Key Porter Books, 1997), 16–17.