Norval Morrisseau's revered work has been honoured, copied and recognized throughout the art world and beyond. Less widely known but equally captivating is the artist's personal life story, which poet and biographer Armand Garnet Ruffo related in his powerful narrative biography, Norval Morrisseau: Man Changing into Thunderbird (Douglas &amp; McIntyre, 2014). Ruffo immersed himself in the life and work of the artist, gaining insight into the struggles and sources of inspiration underlying Morrisseau's greatest works through research and interviews with the artist himself--a connection further strengthened by their shared Ojibway heritage. His lengthy study of Morrisseau inspired Ruffo to write poems reflecting on both the works of art and the emotional context in which Morrisseau painted them. The Thunderbird Poems complements the highly evocative and poetic biography, delving into Morrisseau's creative life through compressed, imagistic language, while untangling the complex and powerful threads of meaning, tradition and emotional power that resonate throughout Morrisseau's strong lines and vibrant colours. Significant themes in Morrisseau's work are mirrored in The Thunderbird Poems: Ojibway legends, Morrisseau's conflicted religious beliefs, political tensions between white and aboriginal Canadians. Significant moments in Morrisseau's life are also traced along with the development of his artistic career. Deeply immersed in Morrisseau's life story, and possessing thorough knowledge of the Ojibway storytelling traditions which grounded so much of the artist's beliefs and creativity, Ruffo provides fresh poetic interpretations of the most renowned and striking works of one of Canada's most celebrated painters.

The Thunderbird Poems

Arts & Photography

Ruffo, Armand Garnet

History & Criticism

Harbour Publishing

At Geronimo's Grave

Literature & Fiction

Poetry

Coteau Books

Norval Morrisseau: Shaman Artist

Phillips, Ruth B.

Morrisseau, Norval

National

Hill, Greg A.

National Gallery of Canada

Norval Morrisseau (19322007), Ojibway shaman-artist, drew his first sketches at age six in the sand on the shores of Lake Nipigon. By the end of his tumultuous life, the prolific self-taught artist was sought by collectors and imitated by forgers. Critics, art historians and curators alike consider him one of the most innovative artists of the twentieth century. Norval Morrisseau: Man Changing Into Thunderbird is an innovative and rich biography of this charismatic and troubled figure. Drawing upon years of extensive research, including interviews with Morrisseau himself, Armand Ruffo evokes the artist’s life from childhood to death, in all its vivid triumphs and tragedies. Ruffo draws upon his own Ojibway heritage and experiences to provide insight into Morrisseau’s life and iconography from an Ojibway perspective. Captivating and readable, this is a brilliantly creative evocation of the art and life of Norval Morrisseau, a life indelibly tied to art.

Norval Morrisseau: Man Changing into Thunderbird

Douglas&McIntyre

Norval Morrisseau (1932–2007), Ojibway shaman-artist, drew his first sketches at age six in the sand on the shores of Lake Nipigon, and his first paintings were in cheap watercolour on birch bark and moose hide. By the end of his tumultuous life, the prolific self-taught artist was sought by collectors, imitated by forgers and received the Order of Canada among other accolades. Critics, art historians and curators alike consider him one of the most innovative artists of the twentieth century and arguably Canada’s greatest painter. Morrisseau was a controversial figure too, eliciting everything from resentment to outright condemnation. Living on booze, flat broke and exhausted, he often traded art for a drink, to the frustration of his agents. Despite immense talent and success, his alcoholism plunged his wife and children into poverty and he spent years bouncing between skid row and jail. In Norval Morrisseau: Man Changing Into Thunderbird, Ruffo draws upon years of extensive research, including interviews with Morrisseau himself, to recollect the artist’s life in all its triumphs and tragedies: his first solo and breakthrough exhibition at the Pollock Gallery in Toronto; his legendary “Garden Party” where he and his agent Jack Pollock flew a coterie of critics and patrons from Toronto to remote Beardmore for an afternoon tea party. Here too is Morrisseau’s heart-wrenching battle with alcoholism, then Parkinson’s disease, and exultant “Shaman’s Return” to national status in the Canadian art scene and his solo show at The National Gallery of Canada. Armand Garnet Ruffo draws upon his own Ojibway heritage and experiences to provide insight into Morrisseau’s life and iconography in this brilliantly creative evocation of the art and life of Norval Morrisseau, a life indelibly tied to art.

A treaty is a contract. A treaty is enduring. A treaty is an act of faith. A treaty at its best is justice. It is a document and an undertaking. It is connected to place, people and self. It is built on the past, but it also indicates how the future may unfold. Armand Garnet Ruffo's TREATY # is all of these. In this far-ranging work, Ruffo documents his observations on life – and in the process, his own life – as he sets out to restructure relationships and address obligations nation-to-nation, human to human, human to nature. Now, he undertakes a new phase in its restoration. He has written his TREATY # like a palimpsest over past representations of Indigenous bodies and beliefs, built powerful connections to his predecessors, and discovered new ways to bear witness and build a place for them, and all of us, in his poems. This is a major new work from an important, original voice.

TREATY #

Buckrider Books

Award-winning author Armand Garnet Ruffo's compelling collection is being re-released with a new introduction by the author, which delves into his family's personal connection with Archie Belaney and into the questions of voice and appropriation that swirl around Grey Owlat a time when these discussions have never been more important. In a fascinating mixture of poetry, fiction, letter, and news report, Ruffo recreates the life of a man who recreated himself entirely and sold that story to the world. In the original back cover copy author Thomson Highway stated that "Armand Ruffo is definitely a writer with a future, a writer to be watched." Highway's observation has been borne out and now, twenty-five years after this collection was first released, a revised edition will return to bookstores.

Grey Owl: The Mystery of Archie Belaney

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

Wolsak & Wynn

From soldiers parachuting into battle to children jumping from a swing, the name Geronimo echoes through time. But the reality of the great Apache warrior’s fate is little remembered. In At Geronimo’s Grave, award-winning poet Armand Garnet Ruffo uses Geronimo’s life as a metaphor for the lives of the many downtrodden and abandoned Indigenous people on this continent. With affection and concern, Ruffo considers the lives and experiences of those who struggle to make their way in a world that has no place for them. Once feared for his great prowess, Geronimo, the resistance fighter, was reduced to wearing a top hat and riding in an early Ford Model T car, a grim caricature of assimilation into the dominant culture. The bitter irony of this fate echoes through the personal poems in At Geronimo’s Grave. This collection is a love letter to a people trapped in the slow-moving vehicle of another culture that is taking them nowhere.

The Dialogues: The Song of Francis Pegahmagabow

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Books by Ruffo, Armand Garnet