Additional Images

Provenance:

The Pollock Gallery Ltd., Toronto, ON;
Private Collection, Toronto, ON

Note:

This painting, Untitled (Four Birds), 1970, was created one year before artists Daphne Odjig, Jackson Beardy, Eddy Cobiness, and Joseph Sanchez met at Odjig’s Winnipeg art gallery and print shop. They were soon joined by friends and artists including Carl Ray, Alex Janvier, and Norval Morrisseau. Together, they advocated for institutional change so that their work be considered inventive, contemporary, and most importantly, visual art.

Even during the early 1970s, their work was widely categorised in terms of ethnographic artefacts, peripheral to most Canadian art galleries and museums, and therefore irrelevant to contemporary art discourse. “We wanted just to be artists,” remembers Odjig. The collective incorporated their name in 1973 as the Professional Native Indian Artists Inc. (PNIAI) and they followed this with a number of critically successful exhibitions across Canada. The cultural legacy of the PNIAI is still unfolding.

The early 1970s was one of the most significant for Indigenous artists in Canada and Untitled (Four Birds) is part of this transformative period. Morrisseau painted the motif of four birds several times during his lifetime, though this work stands apart because the four individual birds are interwoven together and expressed as a single body. The fluttering painted line between birds at the right of the composition illustrates the Anishinaabe knowledge system of interconnectivity between all living things. Their lifeforce is further accentuated by five black flickering lines at the top-left that radiate almost beyond the confines of the paper. Sections of the body, including feathers, intestines, and heart, are represented using minimal amounts of form and colour. Though there are similarities between the contemporaneous work Untitled (Mother and Young) and this painting, here the colour palette is withdrawn to earth tones without accentuating blues or yellows.

The symbolic, spiritual, or personal meaning of four birds to Morrisseau is difficult to determine, however the appearance of four birds to the Anishinaabe people carries a breadth of symbolic meaning. It is possible that the painting refers to the Four Sacred Directions of the Medicine Wheel and its holistic teachings that include the seasons and the stages of life. On the other hand, the four birds may also relate to the clan system, which includes seven original clans including the crane, loon, and bird clans. For artist Ahmoo Angeconeb, birds represent “the spirit of the air” and they are with the Anishinaabe “through our cycle of life. It brings greeting to us when we are born, and it is the last element to be with us when we pass on to the spirit world.” In this view, we can approach Morrisseau’s birds both as animal beings and astral messengers, navigating between the physical and spiritual realms.

Matthew Ryan Smith, Ph.D., is a curator, writer, and editor of European descent. He is currently the Curator & Head of Collections of Glenhyrst Art Gallery, the literary editor of First American Art Magazine, and editorial board member of the Yearbook of Moving Image Studies at Kiel University, Germany.

References:
Baxter, Eli. 2022. Aki-wayn-zih: A Person as Worthy as the Earth. Ed. Matthew Ryan Smith. Montreal, QC and Kingston, ON: McGill-Queens University Press. 36-37.

Pomedli, Michael. 2014. Living with Animals: Ojibwe Spirit Powers. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. 108.

Zimak, Hayley. 2020. “An Ontario Firekeeper explains the Four Directions of the Medicine Wheel.” Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Web.