A possibly fake painting (has not been proven in court) by Norval Morrisseau hanging at the Visible Storage Gallery in the McLennan Library at McGill University in Montreal.Alexis Aubin/The Globe and Mail
An Ontario art dealer has pleaded guilty to his role in what investigators have called Canada’s largest art fraud case, admitting he handled works falsely attributed to the late Anishinaabe painter Norval Morrisseau.
Jim White appeared before an Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Newmarket, Ont., on Wednesday and pleaded guilty to uttering forged documents and possessing property obtained by crime for the purpose of trafficking.
Through his lawyer, Emily Lam, he declined to comment after the proceeding.
Mr. White was one of eight people charged in March, 2023, as part of a 2½-year art fraud investigation that would identify two distinct counterfeiting rings – one based in Thunder Bay, the other in Southern Ontario – responsible for faking thousands of Morrisseaus.
Mr. White’s precise role is unclear from available court records, but one of the co-accused, David Voss, identified Mr. White as a “major distributor” of forgeries in court filings last year.
Mr. Voss admitted to overseeing “the production and distribution of thousands of forged artworks falsely attributed to Norval Morrisseau” and claimed that Mr. White “consigned the forgeries to auction houses and galleries across Canada, where the forgeries were sold to unsuspecting members of the public.”
Mr. Voss was handed a five-year prison sentence for his role. Mr. White’s sentencing is scheduled for Aug. 7.
The Morrisseau investigation launched in 2020, shortly after Jason Rybak, a Thunder Bay Police homicide investigator, watched There Are No Fakes, a TVO documentary that identified many key players in the forgery scheme.
McGill believes it has painting falsely attributed to acclaimed artist Norval Morrisseau after investigation
Insp. Rybak partnered with the OPP to investigate the film’s explosive allegations.
In the documentary, Mr. White states that “100 per cent” of his business came from Morrisseaus and that he’d personally dealt with 189 works by the late painter.
At one point in the documentary, Mr. White tells filmmaker Jamie Kastner, “I have never seen a fake, have you?”
Insp. Rybak said that statement makes the guilty plea all the more gratifying.
“He was a central figure in the documentary saying there were no fakes and today that has culminated in him admitting that paintings he had in his possession and that he sold were fake,” said Insp. Rybak on Wednesday.
Lawyer Jonathan Sommer, who has defended unwitting buyers of Morrisseau fakes and tried in vain for years to get the police involved, said Mr. White played a significant role in denying that any forgeries existed.
“He’s been very litigious in all of this,” said Mr. Sommer. “His position always centred on the idea that there were no fakes.”
Once called the Picasso of the North, Mr. Morrisseau died in 2007 having earned a reputation as one greatest artists in the country. His work featured depictions of people and animals in thick black lines, a style that came to be called the Woodland School.
In the years before his death, Mr. Morrisseau identified dozens of counterfeit works. But buyers who tried to sue galleries for selling them suspect Morrisseaus ran into legal hurdles trying to prove a painting was a definitive fake.
Barenaked Ladies band member Kevin Hearn was one of those plaintiffs. His lawsuit against the gallery that sold him a dubious Morrisseau forms the basis of the documentary. Mr. White intervened in that case.
“To hear [Mr. White] plead guilty to criminal offences is a watershed moment,” said Mr. Sommer, who represented Mr. Hearn. “This is something we’ve been waiting on for a long time.”