Paintings from a famous artist have found their way home after more than four decades.
Two paintings were stolen from Confederation College in 1981. Two men allegedly walked onto campus wearing hard hats disguised as workmen and stole off the wall two paintings from Norval Morrisseau.
Morrisseau was also known at Copper Thunderbird and born at Rocky Bay First Nation.
He was the founder of the Woodlands School of Canadian art and was a prominent figure in the “Indian Group of Seven”.
His paintings are world famous and have spawned many fakes to which the two that were stolen were involved in a forgery ring that spanned Ontario and Quebec.
The missing paintings weren’t seen for 40 years. It was an art collector out of Toronto that was contacted by an art dealer regarding a purchase, they recognized the paintings as one of the missing ones.
It was then in 2018 Director of Public Security at Confederation College, Mike Roznic, was contacted about the investigation.
A joint effort between the College, Thunder Bay Police, Sûreté du Québec and other agencies that investigated a large art forgery ring.
Eventually the investigation lead the recovery of two original paintings by Morrisseau that had been missing for forty years.
Both have been returned to Thunder Bay and now reside inside the Art Gallery of Thunder Bay.
Once covid restrictions loosen, both the College and the AGTB will hold an unveiling of the returned pieces.
