The conviction of the artwork seller Jeff Cowan final week within the sixth and closing fraud case involving forgeries and trafficking of purported works by the pioneering Canadian First Nation artist Norval Morrisseau marks a milestone within the decades-long saga.
On the Ontario Supreme Court docket in rural Barrie, Ontario, Cowan, who represented himself at trial after being accused of supplying a whole lot of forgeries of Canada’s “Picasso of the North”, was discovered responsible on all 4 counts of fraud. He was discovered responsible of uttering cast paperwork and defrauding the general public, together with two prospects, of property valued at greater than C$5,000 ($3,500).
Since Morisseau’s demise in 2007, the worth of his work has elevated exponentially. The forgery and trafficking of Morrisseau knock-offs spanning many years and estimated to be value greater than C$100m ($71m) has been referred to as the “greatest artwork fraud in historical past” by Canadian regulation enforcement.
Whereas the Crown accused Cowan of sourcing forgeries that flooded the artwork market, his defence was that establishing provenance was troublesome on account of Morrisseau’s substance abuse points and lack of constant requirements for signatures. He additionally claimed that most of the works got here from his uncle Howard Alexander, a declare that witnesses stated had no supporting proof. His sentencing is scheduled for February 2026, however he has not dominated out interesting the decision.
Cowan’s conviction follows these of David Voss and Gary Lamont, who pleaded responsible to fraud prices earlier this yr and obtained five-year jail sentences, in addition to alleged ringleader James White, who pleaded responsible to forgery and trafficking in June.
Earlier this yr, inspector Jason Rybak of the Thunder Bay police division, who was a lead investigator within the case that he started in 2019 after an preliminary 2011 case led by federal authorities failed to supply any convictions, instructed The Artwork Newspaper that three giant forgery rings had been uncovered working in northern and southern Ontario.
Based on Rybak, his investigation decided that there have been three elements to the labyrinthine forgery networks. Starting in 1995, Voss produced between 4,500 and 6,000 forgeries imitating Morrisseau’s Seventies type. A second ring was initiated in Thunder Bay by Lamont within the early 2000s, the place he produced round 150 to 200 fakes exploiting Indigenous artists together with Morrisseau’s nephew Benji Morrisseau. White started dealing within the faux Morrisseau works from each rings in 2008, bringing in Paul Bremner and Cowan to supply faux certificates of authenticity and relentlessly pursuing those that stated the works had been faux in court docket and on social media.
It was a 2019 documentary by the Canadian film-maker Jamie Kastner, There Are No Fakes, that lastly introduced the difficulty of widespread fakes in Morrisseau’s market to wider consideration. The movie’s start line was a lawsuit launched by the musician Kevin Hearn of the Canadian band Barenaked Women towards the Toronto-based Maslak McLeod Gallery for promoting him an alleged forgery of a Morrisseau portray in 2005. The movie went on to show the art-fraud ring based mostly in Thunder Bay—the place the artist lived and labored for many years—and instructed that there could also be as much as ten occasions extra faux Morrisseau works available on the market than genuine items. The movie was credited with serving to Hearn’s lawsuit, which was initially dismissed by the courts on the grounds that he couldn’t definitively show that his portray was faux. After it was launched, the Ontario Court docket of Attraction overturned the primary resolution and awarded Hearn C$60,000 (round $44,000). Ontario police additionally credited the movie with inspiring the investigation.
Regardless of the ultimate fraud case drawing to a detailed, the Morrisseau forgery fiasco might not be over but. Based on Cory Dingle, the chief director of the Morrisseau’s property, it nonetheless has a forfeiture listening to in February to find out the destiny of the 1,000 work seized by the Ontario provincial police in 2023 on the time of the arrests of eight suspects.
“For the previous six years, out of respect for the judicial course of, we have now maintained our diligent silence on a number of points,” Dingle tells The Artwork Newspaper. “Areas the place the property was gagged that we will now converse to incorporate answering false narratives which have existed for many years that had been created and promoted by the people who now sit in jail. Setting the report straight now turns into important with these convictions because the perpetrators are actually being convicted of their crimes.”
Dingle provides: “If Canada’s most celebrated and globally recognised Indigenous artist might be defrauded for 32 years, it reveals how weak our cultural programs stay. Let this case be a defining second in Canadian historical past—a catalyst for progress, reflection and reform.”
