This Is Not A Renaissance - The NDN Group of Seven
In part one of this four part series, we highlight the Indigenous trailblazers that fought like hell to change the world forever with their visual art practices. This is the NDN Group Of Seven.
This Is Not A Renaissance is a four-part series highlighting and sharing the first wave of Indigenous artists, thinkers, cultural creators, and groundbreakers that have set the table for Indigenous artists, writers, and creatives of all stripes to thrive in 2023. Part One: The NDN Group of Seven. Part Two: Music For The People. Part Three: Words For The People. Part Four: Thoughts For The People.
Groundbreakers. Misfits. Instigators. Indigenous painters, Jackson Beardy, Eddy Cobiness, Alex Janvier, Norval Morrisseau, Daphne Odjig, Carl Ray and Joseph Sanchez, were sick of taking no for an answer in the Canadian art world, so they took their careers into their own hands and created one of the first independently organized, self-managed Indigenous artists’ collectives and cultural advocacy groups in Canada.
The Professional Native Indian Artists Inc. (PNIAI) was established in the early 1970s in Winnipeg, Manitoba and forever changed the course of Indigenous art.
Though diverse in their painting styles and cultural backgrounds, the founders of PNIAI were united in their determination to advocate for inclusion, recognition, and equal access to art funding.
PNIAI has had a formative and enduring influence on the development of contemporary Indigenous art practice, its critical acceptance and public appreciation. PNIAI initiated an era of increasing activism and empowerment for artists and cultural workers of Indigenous ancestry nationwide. PNIAI’s efforts paved the way for later arts organizations such as the Society of Canadian Artists of Native Ancestry and the Aboriginal Curatorial Collective. It also helped broaden national awareness of contemporary Indigenous art in Canada.
A Poignant Juxtaposition
The Indian Group Of Seven was a playful yet politically intentional reference to Canada’s art darlings of yesterday, The Group Of Seven. Also sometimes known as the Algonquin School, the Group of Seven was a group of Canadian landscape painters from 1920 to 1933. The original members of the Group of Seven were:
Franklin Carmichael (1890–1945),
Lawren Harris (1885–1970),
A. Y. Jackson (1882–1974),
Frank Johnston (1888–1949),
Arthur Lismer (1885–1969),
J. E. H. MacDonald (1873–1932),
and Frederick Varley (1881–1969).
Later Casson, Holgate, and FitxGerald joined the group.
Later, A. J. Casson (1898–1992) was invited to join in 1926,
Edwin Holgate (1892–1977) became a member in 1930, and
LeMoine FitzGerald (1890–1956) joined in 1932.
The Group of Seven, renowned for their depictions of the Canadian landscape, was an ad hoc group formed during exploratory trips to Algoma and Muskoka. However, their formal establishment as the "Group of Seven" occurred in 1919 when they vowed to create a uniquely Canadian art form, kickstarting the first major Canadian national art movement.
By the early 1930s, their art had gained global acclaim. Nevertheless, concerns emerged regarding the National Gallery of Canada's perceived bias towards their work, prompting the creation of the Canadian Group of Painters in February 1933 as a response to the potential exclusion of modern artists.
A century later, the Group of Seven holds a special place in Canadian art. Their contributions, distinct styles, and aesthetic appeal are undeniable. Yet, their legacy is marked by criticism. Critics argue that their portrayal of the Canadian wilderness reinforces the concept of terra nullius by presenting it as pristine and untouched despite Indigenous peoples having inhabited these lands for centuries. The Group's deliberate focus on "unpopulated wilderness" omits Indigenous communities' rich histories and deep connections to these territories.
If the Group of Seven's paintings are meant to define Canada, what does it signify when these works intentionally omit Indigenous Peoples, their communities, histories, cultures, and presence in Canada?
A Way Back From Erasure
A joint exhibition of Indigenous contemporary art was held in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The show called, “Treaty Numbers 23, 287 and 1171”, included Jackson Beardy, Alex Janvier and Daphne Odjig.
The success of the exhibition led to the formation of the Professional Native Indian Artists Association in November 1973 which was funded by the Department of Indian Affairs. The PNIAI was incorporated in February 1974 by all seven members. Haida artist Bill Reid, although not formally signed on, was considered the eighth member and participated in some of the group’s shows.
The name “Indian Group of Seven” was given to the group by Gary Scherbain of the Winnipeg Free Press.
“The group’s work covered the gamut from intensely spiritual to slyly humourous, deeply personal to fiercely political. It took Canada by storm, in both native and non-native communities.”
The “Indian Group of Seven” had numerous joint exhibitions in Canada. The last in which all participated was at the Dominion Gallery in Montreal in 1975.
The group disbanded in 1975.
Today we celebrate and honour these groundbreakers and revolutionary artists that refused to be ignored by the mainstream art world as they took their careers into their own hands and pounded down doors that had yet to be built for Indigenous artists in Canada.
Daphne Odjig
Daphne Odjig, born in 1919 on the Wikwemikong Reserve on Ontario's Manitoulin Island to an Odawa father and English mother, had a remarkable artistic journey. Her artistic training began at a young age, nurtured by her grandfather Jonas, a stone carver, and her father Dominic. Rheumatic fever forced her to leave school at age 13, but she continued to create art, influenced by traditional Potawatomi stories shared during sketching sessions. In 1963, she gained formal recognition as an artist when admitted to the British Columbia Federation of Artists. Her work, like the oil painting "Theatre Queue," depicted cultural isolation. She and her husband later moved to northern Manitoba, where she created detailed pen-and-ink drawings reflecting community life. Odjig's art evolved to include allegories, legends, and illustrations, addressing colonial and post-colonial issues. She used various techniques but settled on acrylic as her preferred medium. Her legacy is significant, as her work is in private and public collections across Canada, and she is considered the "grandmother of Aboriginal art." Odjig also founded the influential "Indian Group of Seven" and evolved her art to express personal feelings, transcending her Indigenous identity and history while emphasizing the importance of lines in her artwork.
Daphne Odjig, CM, OBC, visual artist (born 11 September 1919 on Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory, Manitoulin Island, ON; died 1 October 2016 in Kelowna, BC).
*biography shared with permission from the National Gallery of Canada
Alex Janvier
Alex Janvier is a highly acclaimed contemporary painter in Canada, known for his art influenced by his cultural, spiritual heritage, and modernist abstract painting. Born on the Le Goff Reserve of Cold Lake First Nations in northern Alberta, he credits his mother's beadwork and birch bark basketry as major influences on his artistic style. Janvier spoke the Dene language until age eight and received a strong foundation in his culture and language from elders and old ladies. He pursued formal art training at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, where he explored automatic painting under Marion Nicoll's guidance.
After graduating with honors in 1960, Janvier worked as an instructor at the University of Alberta. His artistic journey took him to New York in 1965, and during a stopover in Ottawa, he was offered a position as an Arts and Crafts Consultant with the Department of Indian Affairs. In 1966, he played a pivotal role in organizing the Indians of Canada Pavilion for Expo '67, fostering cultural autonomy among Indigenous artists, including Norval Morrisseau and others.
Janvier later returned to teaching in Alberta but transitioned to full-time painting in the early 1970s, exhibiting across Canada. He also engaged with Professional Native Artist Inc., aiming to support emerging contemporary Indigenous artists. While influenced by artists like Kandinsky and Klee, Janvier's unique style incorporates Dene iconography. Notably, his mural "Morning Star" in the Canadian Museum of History's Grand Hall depicts the clash of cultures in Canada, a significant career achievement. He received numerous honors, including membership in the Royal Canadian Academy of the Arts, the Order of Canada, and the Governor General's Award for Visual and Media Arts. A major retrospective of his work was held from November 2016 to April 2017.
Alex Simeon Janvier, CM, painter (born 28 Feb 1935 on Le Goff reserve, Cold Lake First Nations, near Bonnyville, AB).
*Biography shared with permission from the National Gallery of Canada
Jackson Beardy
Jackson Beardy, of Ojibwe and Cree heritage, was born on Garden Hill Reserve in Manitoba, Canada, as the fifth of thirteen children. Raised by his maternal grandmother, she instilled in him the role of a storyteller for his people, passing on the history, traditions, and stories of their community.
At the age of seven, Beardy attended a residential school in Portage la Prairie, Southern Manitoba, where he did not know English. He had to learn the language from scratch, leading to a complex journey of identity rediscovery post-graduation.
During his time at the residential school, Beardy discovered his passion for drawing and painting. Although discouraged from pursuing fine art, he found a compromise in commercial art. He studied at the Winnipeg Vocational School and the University of Manitoba but decided to leave formal education, guided by his mentor George Swinton, who emphasized being an artist over acquiring credentials.
Beardy developed a distinctive graphic style characterized by warm colors and curving ribbons of paint. While his early works focused on literal depictions of traditional legends, he later embraced a more personal and meaningful approach, incorporating Indigenous traditions and the interconnectedness of all beings.
His artistic career gained momentum with a solo exhibition in 1965 at the University of Winnipeg. He went on to achieve commercial success throughout the 1960s and 1970s, consulting for the Canadian Indian Pavilion at Expo '67 and creating commemorative pieces for the Canadian centennial and Manitoba centennial in 1970.
Beardy also contributed as a noted illustrator for various books and participated in exhibitions, such as the "Contemporary Native Art of Canada: The Woodland Indians" exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum in 1976. His work is held in numerous public and private collections across Canada and internationally.
Jackson Beardy (also known as Quincy Pickering Jackson Beardy), Oji-Cree artist (born 24 July 1944 in Island Lake, MB; died 8 December 1984 in Winnipeg, MB).
*Biography shared with permission from Waddingtons
Norval Morrisseau
The artist Norval Morrisseau (Copper Thunderbird) is the first Eastern Woodlands artist to translate his culture (that of the Anishnaabe or Ojibway people) visually, through acrylic paintings, prints and drawings accessible to Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. He invented the pictographic style, now used by three generations of Indigenous artists.
Morrisseau learned Anishnaabe cosmology from his shaman grandfather, a member of the Midewiwin religious society, and Christianity from his Catholic grandmother. He studied his Anishnaabe heritage intensively, becoming a shaman. His art draws upon Midewiwin birchbark scrolls, rock paintings and Anishnaabe decorative arts. In the 1970s, Morrisseau studied holistic Eckankar spirituality. Through his travels in Northern Ontario, and through the printmaking Triple-K Cooperative in Red Lake, he has influenced many First Nations artists, including Daphne Odjig, Carl Ray, Joshim Kakegamic, Roy Thomas, Saul Williams, and Blake Debassige. His published works include Legends of My People, The Great Ojibway (ed. Selwyn Dewdney) (Toronto, 1965).
One of seven children, Morrisseau was raised by his maternal grandparents Moses Potan and Vernique Nanakonagos. He left school after the fourth grade. He developed his art from 1959, while working in mining. Isolated from major urban centres, he became a full-time artist in the early 1960s. In 1963-66, Morrisseau enlarged the scale of his works and developed his pictographic style. Combining rich colours, he represents inner realities with strong flowing lines, often indicating spiritual forces. His art expresses his spiritual explorations and aspects of Anishnaabe culture (Untitled (Shaman), c. 1971), as well as his personal development. It reflects tensions between Indigenous cultures and Christianity, shamanism, the interconnection between all living things and the importance of the family . In 1966 Morrisseau (with Carl Ray) created a mural for the Indians of Canada Pavilion at Expo '67 in Montréal.
Norval Morrisseau (called Miskwaabik Animiiki in Anishinaabemowin, meaning “Copper Thunderbird”), CM, artist (born 14 March 1931 or 1932 in Northern Ontario; died 4 December 2007 in Toronto, ON).
*Biography shared with permission from the National Gallery of Canada
Eddy Cobiness
Anishinaabeg (Ojibwe) artist Eddy Cobiness was founding member of the Professional Native Indian Artists Incorporation (aka the Woodlands Group of Seven) an association of native artists of the woodland school. He was self taught and began drawing pictures of birds in the sand, snow or on cardboard. Born in 1933 he was raised in Warroad Minnesota. In the 1950s he served in the US Army where he discovered working with watercolour and later moved to Buffalo Point Reserve on the shores of Lake of the Woods in southeastern Manitoba. He started by illustrating realistic scenes of the community and nature before moving to more abstracted forms. Cobiness worked in oil, acrylic, watercolour, coloured pencil as well as pen and ink. In the 1960s his ink and watercolour drawings were commercially successful and he began his art career. He was influenced by his colleague Painter Benjamin Chee Chee although in later years developed his work in several styles using many media. Eddy “Doc” Cobiness died in 1996 at he age of 62. He was survived by his wife of 34 years Helen and their 9 children and numerous grandchildren.
Eddy “Doc” Cobiness, Ojibwe (Anishinaabe) artist (born 17 July 1933 in Warroad, Minnesota, United States; died 1 January 1996 in Winnipeg, MB).
*Biography shared with permission from the Hambleton Gallery
Carl Ray
Born in 1943 at the Sandy Lake First Nation Reserve, Ontario, Carl Ray was a Cree artist, printmaker, illustrator, editor and art teacher. Ray was sent to a residential school in McIntosh, Ontario, where he discovered a desire to express himself through art, teaching himself to paint.
After leaving the school and after the death of his father, Ray began supporting himself and his family at the age of 15 through work as a hunter, logger, commercial fisherman, and miner. By his late 20s, he began painting seriously, concerning himself with preserving unrecorded traditional legends for future generations. Ray learned Ojibwe legends from his grandfather, one of the most revered medicine men in the area.
Ray left Sandy Lake to pursue work at the Red Lake gold mines, where he would contract tuberculosis. He would recover in the Fort William sanatorium, where he again turned to painting. In 1966, when he was sufficiently recovered, he returned to Sandy Lake.
Early in his career, Ray became close to Norval Morrisseau, who encouraged him to reject the traditional taboo against painting Indigenous legends. Ray would also incorporate Morrisseau’s signature X-ray style, typically using a restricted palette of only a few colours, such as brown, black and blue. Ray often depicted inner organs as well as the life force of his subjects. With Morrisseau, Ray painted a large mural commissioned for the Indians of Canada Pavilion at Expo ’67 in Montreal.
In 1971, Ray created a group of illustrations for James Stevens’ book “Legends of the Sandy Lake Cree.” He also illustrated the cover of “The White City” published by Tom Marshall in 1976. In 1971, Ray taught at the Manitou Arts Foundation on Schreiber Island. In 1971–1972, the Department of Indian Affairs sponsored him, along with Morrisseau, to tour through northern communities and reserves.
Ray continued to paint through the mid-1970s. He received several commissions to create murals at schools, including a large mural at the Sioux Lookout Fellowship and Communications Centre. In 1970, he had his first solo exhibition of his black-and-sepia Woodlands-style paintings on paper and canvas at the Aggregation Gallery in Toronto. The gallery continued to represent his work and estate through to the early 1980s.
Ray’s blossoming career was cut short in 1978, when he died after being stabbed in a bar fight in Sioux Lookout at the age of 35. The artist’s work is held by numerous museums, including the Canadian Museum of History, Gatineau, Quebec, the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg, Ontario, the Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, Manitoba, and the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Ontario.
*Biography used with permission from Waddingtons
Joseph Sanchez
Born in Trinidad, Colorado to Pueblo, Spanish, and German parents, Joseph Marcus Sánchez was raised in Whiteriver, Arizona on the White Mountain Apache Reservation. In 1966, he graduated from Alchesay High School in Whiteriver, with the intent to join the priesthood. This was not the right fit, and he returned home to the White Mountains. Sadly, his mother became ill and died unexpectedly. Soon after, in 1968 he joined the United States Marine Corps and was stationed at the El Toro UCMC Base in California, where he trained soldiers drafted for the Vietnam War.
In 1970, He travelled to Canada, where he met Ann Nadine Krajeck, a young photographer. They were married and settled in Richer, Manitoba, eventually purchasing a 20-acre farm in Giroux, Manitoba. In February 1975, Sanchez returned to the United States under President Gerald Ford's amnesty program. Ann stayed in Canada, and Joseph traveled back and forth until she joined him in Arizona in 1978.
In 1981, Joseph and Ann had a daughter, Rosa Nadine Xochimilco, and they lived in Scottsdale, Arizona, where Joseph maintained a studio on Cattletrack Road. During the 1980s, Sánchez developed a program as an artist in residence at Rosa's schools, teaching college level art history and technique to elementary school students. More than half of those students have gone on to become professional artists.
Sánchez travelled for his work, and in 1990 began traveling to Santa Fe, New Mexico where he met Margaret Burke. In 1996 he made his Santa Fe residence permanent, and they had a son, Jerome Bonafacio Xocotl. Joseph and Margaret were married in 2006.
*Biography used with permission from Joseph’s website.
wow! thanks for the back story and the fantastic powerful images!!
Appreciate this story. Group of Seven also would not allow females join the group!!!