Calgary gallery EA Studios has filed a defamation lawsuit against Norval Morrisseau Estate Ltd. and Cory Dingle, one of the leading voices calling out the rampant fraud of the pioneering Woodland School painter’s works. The gallery alleges the two parties “falsely disparaged” it by implying its collection of the painter’s works may be fake.
Morrisseau, from Bingwi Neyaashi Anishinaabek First Nation, died in 2007. Fakes have flooded the market for his work for years. The $1.45-million lawsuit highlights the tensions over who gets a say in steering the painter’s legacy. While the gallery had a direct connection to Morrisseau in the 1980s, its statement alleges that the estate organization and Dingle defamed the gallery “in order to steer the Plaintiff’s clients or prospective clients to the Defendants’ business.”
The gallery and the estate organization came to an agreement in 2023, according to EA’s statement of claim, that was designed to help both parties authenticate Morrisseau paintings. The gallery could send potential buyers to the estate organization for reassurances of authenticity, the filing says, and it would allow the organization to use digital images of its collection in a database to help artificial-intelligence software authenticate paintings.
The filing alleges that the Morriseau estate organization and Dingle “failed to reassure the Plaintiff’s potential clients of the value and authenticity of the Plaintiff’s works, and instead falsely disparaged the Plaintiff and then tried to, or did, convince said potential clients to purchase works from Dingle and/or the Alleged Estate.”
None of the allegations have been tested in court, and no statements of defence were filed prior to the publication of this story. In an e-mail, the estate organization said: “The Estate looks forward to defending itself against these allegations and due to the ongoing litigation we do not have any further comments at this time.” (The statement was not attributed to a person; Dingle, the organization’s executive director, did not respond to text messages or a phone call asking whether he would like to comment separately.)
Investigators have estimated between 4,500 and 6,000 Morrisseau forgeries are in circulation, which they believe could make him the subject of the biggest art fraud in history. For years, gallerists have said, this has dampened the market for works by Indigenous artists in the Woodland style.
The gallery, whose legal name is EA Studios (Jasper) Ltd., has long had a direct connection with Morrisseau’s work. Armand Garnet Ruffo’s 2014 biography Norval Morrisseau: Man Changing into Thunderbird describes EA’s founder, Galal Helmy, becoming the painter’s patron in the 1980s, allowing Morrisseau to work from his property near Jasper, Alta., for several years.
Though Morrisseau sold some paintings from that era to dealers and at exhibitions, the biographer writes that he left “hundreds of paintings” there, with an “unimaginable selection” being put on display at EA’s gallery.
According to EA’s legal filing, after developing “concerns” about the Morriseau estate organization’s co-operation with their agreement, the gallery hired two private investigators to approach Dingle while posing as interested buyers of Morriseau’s work.
During calls with the investigators late last October, the filing alleges, Dingle “denied” the gallery’s relationship with the estate, said “the only and best place to purchase Norval’s work is through ‘us,’” and “implied that the Norval artworks in EA’s inventory may be fakes.”
The gallery alleges that similar statements were made to others during internet and phone conversations and in person, and says that all such defamatory statements are false. It alleges that Dingle and the estate attempted “to steer the Plaintiff’s clients or prospective clients to the Defendants’ business.”
A legal battle followed Morrisseau’s death, after which his children and his long-time caregiver Gabor Vadas agreed in 2012 to share his estate and the management of his artistic legacy. EA’s statement of claim says that Morrisseau’s estate has been “fully distributed” but that the defendants’ statements suggested that the gallery “is considered, by Norval’s children, to be a scammer.”
