The conviction of the art dealer Jeff Cowan last week in the sixth and final fraud case involving forgeries and trafficking of purported works by the pioneering Canadian First Nation artist Norval Morrisseau marks a milestone in the decades-long saga.
At the Ontario Supreme Court in rural Barrie, Ontario, Cowan, who represented himself at trial after being accused of supplying hundreds of forgeries of Canada’s “Picasso of the North”, was found guilty on all four counts of fraud. He was found guilty of uttering forged documents and defrauding the public, along with two customers, of property valued at more than C$5,000 ($3,500).
Since Morisseau’s death in 2007, the value of his work has increased exponentially. The forgery and trafficking of Morrisseau knock-offs spanning decades and estimated to be worth more than C$100m ($71m) has been called the “biggest art fraud in history” by Canadian law enforcement.
Inside the 'biggest art fraud in history': what the alleged mass forgery tells us about the market for First Nations art in Canada
While the Crown accused Cowan of sourcing forgeries that flooded the art market, his defence was that establishing provenance was difficult due to Morrisseau’s substance abuse issues and lack of consistent standards for signatures. He also claimed that many of the works came from his uncle Howard Alexander, a claim that witnesses said had no supporting evidence. His sentencing is scheduled for February 2026, but he has not ruled out appealing the verdict.
Cowan’s conviction follows those of David Voss and Gary Lamont, who pleaded guilty to fraud charges earlier this year and received five-year prison sentences, as well as alleged ringleader James White, who pleaded guilty to forgery and trafficking in June.
Earlier this year, inspector Jason Rybak of the Thunder Bay police department, who was a lead investigator in the case that he began in 2019 after an initial 2011 case led by federal authorities failed to produce any convictions, told The Art Newspaper that three large forgery rings were uncovered operating in northern and southern Ontario.
According to Rybak, his investigation determined that there were three components to the labyrinthine forgery networks. Beginning in 1995, Voss produced between 4,500 and 6,000 forgeries imitating Morrisseau’s 1970s style. A second ring was initiated in Thunder Bay by Lamont in the early 2000s, where he produced around 150 to 200 fakes exploiting Indigenous artists including Morrisseau’s nephew Benji Morrisseau. White began dealing in the fake Morrisseau works from both rings in 2008, bringing in Paul Bremner and Cowan to produce fake certificates of authenticity and relentlessly pursuing those who said the works were fake in court and on social media.
It was a 2019 documentary by the Canadian film-maker Jamie Kastner, There Are No Fakes, that finally brought the issue of widespread fakes in Morrisseau’s market to wider attention. The film’s starting point was a lawsuit launched by the musician Kevin Hearn of the Canadian band Barenaked Ladies against the Toronto-based Maslak McLeod Gallery for selling him an alleged forgery of a Morrisseau painting in 2005. The film went on to expose the art-fraud ring based in Thunder Bay—where the artist lived and worked for decades—and suggested that there may be up to ten times more fake Morrisseau works on the market than authentic pieces. The film was credited with helping Hearn’s lawsuit, which was initially dismissed by the courts on the grounds that he could not definitively prove that his painting was fake. After it was released, the Ontario Court of Appeal overturned the first decision and awarded Hearn C$60,000 (around $44,000). Ontario police also credited the film with inspiring the investigation.
Despite the final fraud case drawing to a close, the Morrisseau forgery fiasco may not be over yet. According to Cory Dingle, the executive director of the Morrisseau’s estate, it still has a forfeiture hearing in February to determine the fate of the 1,000 paintings seized by the Ontario provincial police in 2023 at the time of the arrests of eight suspects.
“For the past six years, out of respect for the judicial process, we have maintained our diligent silence on several issues,” Dingle tells The Art Newspaper. “Areas where the estate was gagged that we can now speak to include answering false narratives that have existed for decades that were created and promoted by the people that now sit in jail. Setting the record straight now becomes critical with these convictions as the perpetrators are now being convicted of their crimes.”
Dingle adds: “If Canada’s most celebrated and globally recognised Indigenous artist could be defrauded for 32 years, it shows how vulnerable our cultural systems remain. Let this case be a defining moment in Canadian history—a catalyst for growth, reflection and reform.”
