Born in 1931 at Sandy Point Reserve, Ontario, Norval Morrisseau is affiliated with the Ojibway.

Norval Morrisseau is a legend in his own time. An Ojibway Indian living like a nomad on the northwest shores of Lake Superior, Morrisseau started to paint in 1959, after he received a "vision" telling him to do so. He is the first Indian to break the tribal rules of setting down Indian legends in picture form for the white man to see and the first Indian to actually draw these legends and design representative shapes to illustrate his folklore.

First he painted on birch bark which is all he had, and he felt chosen to set down the great heritage of the Ojibway in some form before it disappeared forever.

A Toronto art dealer, Jack Pollock, discovered Norval in 1960 and bought 42 of his paintings which he sold within 24 hours.

Morrisseau is the founder of an art "movement" popularly called Woodland Indian Art. He is to the young Ojibway painters and printmakers of Northern Ontario what Tom Thomson was to the Group of Seven - an artist who follows his own vision, and whom others follow. He has been a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts since 1970.

Today, his original paintings and prints are eagerly collected throughout the world.