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We’re Back…
We’re back…
Just like the Whack-a-Mole, we refuse to stay down…
On March 15 our educational blog, which we publish in the public interest, was subjected to two cyber attacks by art terrorists trying to impose a Chill & Kill freeze on our free speech rights, on an issue that is of concern to countless Canadians interested in protecting the integrity of Canada’s fine art and Aboriginal cultural heritage.
The Principal Art Terrorist was The Principal Conspiracy Theorist, AKA Mr. Smith, AKA the Principal Morrisseau Dealer, Donald Robinson. He was supported in his attack by the Junior Conspiracy Theorist, Paul Robinson.
Within five (5) hours, their cyber attack was joined by the Principal Conspiracy Theorist Lawyer, Aaron Milrad.
The attack was two-pronged:
Norval called the Principal Conspiracy Theorist, “The Shark in Still Waters.” Principal Morrisseau Dealer AKA Principal Conspiracy Theorist. No matter which disguise he uses, no one in Canadian art history has ever before, so aggressively sought out the media spotlight for himself, by setting out to deliberately place himself, and his Conspiracy Theory about supposed Morrisseau forgeries, at the centre of a public discussion from one end of the country to the other. One can only wonder, why a person would support a Conspiracy Theory that is universally discredited by the scientific community, and put at obvious risk his entire credibility as a Morrisseau authenticator of any level.
1 – CHILL & KILL the Voice – The trio – all decades long business associates – obviously acting in concert, less than five hours apart, made spurious charges to our server, about “privacy violations,” to try the get our service cut off and our site closed down.
A fabulous Norval “Diary” painting telling exactly of what he thought of the Principal Conspiracy Theorist. He called him a “Shark in Still Waters” complete with shark fin headress…. And yes, of course, the signature and title have already been forensically authenticated by a top Canadian scientist.
“The Terms of Service have a clause titled: 10.05 Private Information and Images. Subscribers may not post or disclose any personal or private information about or images of children or any third party without the consent of said party (or a parent’s consent in the case of a minor).”
The Demands of the Art Terrorists
Claiming “privacy rights” these three leading Conspiracy Theorists demanded that their names be removed from all our public postings about their public business activities.
After 13 long years of associating themselves, and their names, prominently in the media with supposed Morrisseau fakes and forgeries, why would they now try to impose a CHILL & KILL attack on our public interest media site?
Junior Conspiracy Theorist is working hard trying to earn his father’s mantle as Principal Conspiracy Theorist.
While investigating compliance with the Terms of Service of our server, we put our site “under construction” while we revamped the site to accommodate the privacy regulations as defined for us by the legal department of our server.
(These vary from server to server. Some, when challenged, run easily away from protecting free speech rights; others, like Google, are staunch defenders of Free Speech.)
While conferring with our server’s legal department we explained that the complainants seeking to shut down our site, were people who are all very public actors, and have over 13 years, purposely made themselves public personalities, by going to the media, or using their corporate blog, to spread propaganda to promote their cause of a Conspiracy Theory that helps bring a huge financial benefit to their business, their art collections and their relatives.
The Principal Conspiracy Theorist Lawyer has repeatedly sought out the media spotlight, to make himself the centre of a public debate, by deliberately stoking the fires of controversy with his wild Conspiracy Theory of thousands of forgeries by a syndicate of diabolical forgers.
All the while devaluing the art collections of others by millions of dollars.
We pointed out that our blog contained no private or personal information, nor do we even know, or have any interest in, anything private or personal about any of the complainants.
The legal department sent us their official definition of “private or personal” as it applies to their company’s Terms of Service.
“We define personal Identifying Information as providing a person’s First and Last name in conjunction with each other, a phone number, email address, physical address, Social Security Number, images of a person.”
Therefore we modified our site to be in compliance with the Terms of Service and its official definition.
The Conspiracy Theorists then shifted into Phase II of their cyber attack.
2 – CHILL & KILL BY MOUNTING KRG ADVERTISING ON OUR LINK – Having quickly gotten the server to shut us down, before we had a chance to respond, Kinsman Robinson Galleries then decided to petulantly “give us the finger,” and in a particularly mean-spirited assault, quickly bought a “sponsored link” for corporate advertising for their gallery on our temporarily disabled site.
While our site was down, to bring it into compliance, anyone from around the world who clicked our MorrisseauHoaxExposedBlog.com would see, instead, a prominent Kinsman Robinson Galleries advertisement re-directing visitors who came to our site – which was now temporarily disabled – instead to the Kinsman Robinson Galleries, the very people who had attacked our blog, and were in high gear to CHILL & KILL our public interest educational site.
When we reported our outrage at this diabolical KRG initiative, to the server, the customer relations people expressed that they too were utterly aghast at what their advertising department had, unknowingly, been a party to.
In a word: diabolical. Two words: unconscionable, and devious…
The server quickly dismounted the Kinsman Robinson Galleries advertising attack ad on our blog link.
Actually, rather than clarifying anything, clicking the link for a KRG explanation of the Hoax, could lead anyone into a whole lot of trouble. Here’s why:
A screen grab from the KRG blog, of a ludicrous document to any historian.
Left is the link you would end up with, on the KRG blog page, sporting – you won’t believe this! – a totally unreliable document posing as some kind of proof of anything! It demonstrates exactly what I’ve been saying, that there is no one at KRG who has academic credentials as a historian, as a document examiner, as a handwriting analysis expert, or as an investigative journalist. Or they would never post such a ludicrous document with its accompanying text.
And which is also why they don’t seem to mind at all ordering people to change or falsify documents and photos.
Even using basic common sense tells you this document could be doctored and manipulated in many different ways.
Even an amateur eye can tell that Norval Morrisseau – allowing he wrote that wobbly signature – DID NOT write the declaration at the top. Someone kindly did it for him – or should we say, for themselves…? And the bottom too. There is no proof of any kind that any of the writing was done simultaneously. It could have been done, literally years apart…
The typical BDP signature on the back of almost all of Randy Potter’s Morrisseaus, that the Principal Morrisseau Dealer and other Morrisseau collectors saw. The Conspiracy Theorists, at first in love with the signatures, would suddenly change their minds, say the huge signatures on every canvas were all forged, never explaining why such a huge betraying forgery would possibly be put there by even the dumbest forger, knowing it would betray him instantly. In fact the Stupid Forger was turned in by the signature DNA in the end thanks to handwriting analysis by top Canadian forensic scientists. The Dumb Forger turned out to be, with DNA certainty, none other than Norval Morrisseau himself.
Unlike the writings on the back of hundreds of Morrisseau BDPs, which have been scientifically proven to have been signed, titled, and dated by the same hand, and that hand was Norval Morrisseau’s, with DNA certainty, and that no one else was involved with any of it. (See Glossary: BDP)
We also know Bob Bateman sat down with a pile of his calendar art reproduction “prints” and signed hundreds at a time, one after the other. He didn’t know where his signed repros were going; he didn’t care. He just mindlessly signed away till he got a cramp, just because his distributor told him he wanted 500 signatures… Bateman’s Cramped Hand
How many dozens, or scores, of these blank Delta hotel chits did someone plop in front of Norval and have him scrawl his signature, so they could later have the tops and bottoms added to suit the occasion, or the case they were trying to make…?
To me, as a professional historian, the document DOES NOT prove “Norval Morrisseau Declarations Are No Hoax,” but is an interesting historical curiosity, at best… And raises all kinds of questions, rather than, as KRG would have you believe, offering proof of anything.
But we are flattered: it is the first time that KRG appropriates the word “Hoax” from our blog to try to address the serious Hoax problem for Canadian and international audiences.
If this is the quality of document they offer as an explanation then their case is in far worse trouble than they know…
For starters: from whom did the original paper document come from and when? Which hotel did it come from and when? Who wrote the first line and when? Who wrote the signature and when? Who wrote the bottom line and when? How many more of these are spurious autograph chits are out there?
In the accompanying text there are, in fact, many more dishonest allusions made by the writer, trying to bundle forgeries, with moral rights, and copyright violations, in another attempt to try to backdate the “forgery” allegations to 1993, when in fact there was absolutely no… none… zip… nada… talk of forgeries by anyone, anywhere. And there would be none for years afterwards…
Their Shame; Their Shame; Their Utter Shame – We very well understand why the trio of Principal Conspiracy Theorists would not want to have their names published alongside the documentary disclosures we have made, involving their published comments as noted on hundreds of pages of court transcripts, hundreds of paintings, hundreds of documents and affidavits, and hundreds of emails, letters, and media interviews.
Frankly, I wouldn’t want my name associated or published, either, alongside the hugely compromising and incriminating evidence that is directly and indirectly connected to their names on sworn Affidavits, historical records, court documents, official court transcripts, media articles, radio and television interviews, and findings in scientific reports.
I would be ashamed too. And want to hide from any and all publicity associated with past misdeeds as noted, in the media, on blogs, and in public documents and court transcripts, over many years by outraged leading Canadians in the fine art community.
Also, being incontrovertibly tied to multiple acts of cultural genocide against Canadian First Nations art and artists cannot be a happy legacy for anyone to be remembered for by posterity.
Hiding as much of the infamy, by engaging in CHILL & KILL against investigative journalists, would seem to be one way they have chosen to go.
It was what Lance Armstrong tried to do, also, for a while, with the same kind of CHILL and KILL tactics in the media, and with SLAPP suits in the courts against decent other athletes who tried to come clean with their past misdeeds.
Trying to destroy a lot of innocent people along the way is just part of the collateral damage that ruthless business operatives like Armstrong, Conrad Black, and the Conspiracy Theorists are willing to pile up while raking in the millions.
Consider these Truths:
The McClintock SET UP – Richard McClintock, a Canadian art forger was arrested in 2010, after trying to sell only two (2) high-end forgeries by famous Quebec artists. The forgeries were instantly caught by an art dealer; the forger was instantly caught by police; the forger was instantly sentenced by the court.
THE KRG CLAIM – In 2001, Kinsman Robinson Galleries of Toronto, announced that there were “thousands of forgeries by umpteen forgers” out there.
CHILL and KILL Shame #1: In 13 years neither KRG nor the Principal Conspiracy Theorist Lawyer or any other Conspiracy Theorist has ever been able to take a single “forger” or “forgery” to court. Not even once.
Though they claimed to have thousands – over four thousand said Donald Robinson – to pick from…
They very well knew that any judge would have seen through their charges of forgery as merely a cheap, and shabby – and quite diabolical – business initiative, to attack their business competitors, purely for personal financial gain.
And to control the market by convincing people that most of the paintings, sold by their competitors were fakes, and that the only way to be sure of getting authentic original Morrisseaus, was to buy them from Kinsman Robinson Galleries of Toronto.
CHILL and KILL Shame #2: After an RCMP investigation over two years that cost millions, not a single charge was laid against anyone, nor a forgery identified, or a forger found. The RCMP closed down the investigation.
So much for the substance of what the Robinsons and Milrad were claiming.
It gets worse; they really did start going to court, at last…
CHILL and KILL: Shoot the Messenger #3: The very first person the Principal Conspiracy Theorist took to court, in 2010, was – can you believe this? – in a despicable SLAPP suit, against a highly informed and extremely well researched blogger, Ugo Matulic, to try to shut him up from exposing their diabolical and unprincipled business activities.
CHILL and KILL: Shoot the Messenger #4: When our blog went up we received an instant Cease and Desist notification demanding that we shut down our blog.
CHILL and KILL: Shoot the Messenger #5: Principal Morrisseau Conspiracy Theorist cyber attack on our server.
CHILL and KILL: Shoot the Messenger #6: Junior Morrisseau Conspiracy Theorist cyber attack on our server.
CHILL and KILL: Shoot the Messenger #7: Principal Morrisseau Conspiracy Theorist Lawyer cyber attack on our server.
CHILL and KILL: Shoot the Messenger SUMMARY: For 13 long years, neither the Principal Morrisseau Dealer, nor the Principal Morrisseau Lawyer, took a single forger, or forgery, or retailer of supposed forgeries, to court. Not once.
Everyone knows why; the whole thing was a Hoax from the beginning that could never hope to pass the smell test, certainly not in court.
The Conspiracy Theorists knew what would work better than the courts – private threats and “enforcement.”
Plus spreading propaganda through negligent, gullible, and compliant journalists and media outlets.
The Conspiracy Theorists already had launched behind the scenes private attacks on their art dealer competitors:
– with their “enforcers” making visits to dealers and enforcing compliance,
– engaging in private surveillance by “Mr. Smith,”
– attacking art shows and demanding paintings be removed,
– threatening phone calls,
– malicious and defamatory website and blog postings against collectors and paintings,
– forcing the cancellation of book launches,
– enforcing the delisting of auction paintings,
– launching physical attacks in the street and at the place of residence of a dealer who refused to comply with the Diktats of the Conspiracy Theorists.
Now, when highly informed and well researched independent journalists investigate just what the hell is going on in Canada’s fine art Morrisseau market, the Conspiracy Theorists, now begin to viciously target these journalists, by ramping up their cyber stalking, and art terrorism to shut them up by trying to close down their servers, and launching SLAPP suits in court.
What does this say about the claim that started all this, supposedly of “thousands of forgeries and umpteen forgers?”
Jack Pollock, Norval’s most successful and longest art dealer wouldn’t have been surprised. Of long experience he wrote all about, “… what the art world is like: scheming, manipulative, and, quite often, downright fraudulent.” – Jack Pollock, Norval Morrisseau’s longest (1962-1981) & most successful (12 shows) dealer
There is a further problem related to people who engage in Art Terrorism like this.
CHILL & KILL: DISTORT DOCUMENTS Shame #7
The Principal Conspiracy Theorist demands we doctor (falsify) pictures and other documents, to hide his face and not disclose his identity…
The trio is demanding that we alter historical documents to hide their names and obliterate their connection to past events as noted on many legal and sworn documents.
This means they want us to join in an immoral and unethical cover-up of their past behaviour in past events as noted in published and unpublished historical documents.
And they want us to obliterate their faces on photos that are already posted by themselves and others on other internet sites and in Google caches.
As a professional historian, I am totally aghast at anyone altering any historical documents, and photos, or at people demanding others do it for them, just to try to hide their participation in historic and public events.
There is no telling, where a diabolical practice like that, once begun, can lead…
It is unconscionable to me that a trio of self-serving businessmen – including a lawyer no less – is completely at ease with demanding that we alter documents to suit their private agendas.
I fully understand that they want to hide from being incriminated in countless affidavits and allegations made by many people under oath.
This is tantamount to falsifying documents. Removing text, or removing a face, falsifies the original integrity of a document or picture. Whether done rightly or wrongly, the altered document is no longer a reflection of the original truth it once represented.
A historical document is therefore transformed into a propaganda document and now no longer reflects an original truth, but a new altered reality.
At a minimum it is a furtive attempt to hide something… Usually something unseemly.
A new reality that the document and picture manipulators are more happy to promote, as their version of the truth…
Government officials and politicians do this all the time, to hide crooked, behind the scenes dealings with party bagmen, and corporate con men, to whom they are financially beholden.
The Implication
It is why politicians – and lawyers, who direct them in this unethical direction – fight each other for the bottom spot of every trust or respect index ever published in every single public opinion poll ever taken.
Being at ease with trying to enforce the falsifying of documents has grave implications also, in the case of art sold by the Conspiracy Theorist businessmen, where it raises equally disturbing questions, not only about the morality and ethics of the people selling the art, but of the very integrity of their art itself.
With this cyber attack they are compelling people to alter documents, alter names, and change photos, and are sending clear signals that they are completely all right with doing that. And anything similar if that’s what it takes to achieve their bottom line.
Which raises numerous disturbing questions. How can anyone in future:
– possibly trust that when they say paintings in their gallery are indeed by Norval Morrisseau, that they are not by some other contract painter: say Karl Burrows, or Gabe Vadas, Bryant Ross, or… who knows?
– possibly trust any appraisal that their gallery issues?
– possibly trust any Certificate of Authenticity their gallery issues?
– possibly trust any call their gallery makes certifying a painting as authentic?
– possibly trust any call their gallery makes certifying a painting as a “forgery?”
– possibly trust their credibility on any level as a trustworthy Morrisseau authenticator?
– possibly believe their gallery label has any value, other than noting the name of a gallery whose principals are perfectly willing to falsify documents, pictures, and records when it suits their purpose, or order others to do it?
It’s easy to see with businessmen demonstrating that they are completely comfortable with cyber terrorism, and using this kind of unethical behavior in pursuit of a CHILL and KILL agenda, that they have irreparably damaged the public’s belief that they are an honest broker in the Canadian fine art market.
That they have totally debased the coinage of their KRG brand.
It can only upset outside observers so much they may very well consider launching a class action suit to recover damage done to the value of their paintings.
It can also upset former clients of the gallery to form their own class action suit as they no longer trust that the paintings they bought on good faith, from Morrisseau’s “Wheelchair Invalid Painting Period,” are indeed genuine…
If the principals of the company are so passionate in CHILL & KILL initiatives against journalists, just what the hell are they hiding?
Terrorizing Norval that “Dumb” Indian
- You better read this to find out all the ways that white men have used, and abused Indians for personal gain and profit…
If they are quite at ease with forcing people to falsify documents and photos, how much did they force the “wheelchair invalid” to sign those “Affidavits of Forgery” for them?
For some twelve years, Norval was a total wheelchair invalid and dreaded hugely being abandoned and just thrown onto the street.
Norval knew he was penniless – as he told John Geddes, of Macleans Magazine, in 2003 – and was as helpless, and vulnerable as any virtual quadriplegic is, to outside pressures to comply with the Diktats of his so-called “care-givers.” He told Geddes he wished he had a few dollars so he could buy some paint and canvas…
Morrisseau apparently died with no assets, no bank account, no house, no paintings. Obviously he must have been a man ripe for manipulation, just to survive…
In 2006 Noraval became a victim of the white men around his wheelchair and ended up having to pay $11,000 to Joe Otavnik for not recognizing a painting he had done, and mistakenly calling it a fake.
One certainly wonders what kind of “protection” and “care” Norval Morrisseau got from the three white people who were supposed to protect his personal and business interests – Gabe Vadas who held Norval’s Power of Attorney, Aaron Milrad, Norval’s longtime lawyer, and Donald Robinson, the Principal Morrisseau Dealer, who was in charge of all sales of Norval’s paintings?
When Norval died penniless…
Or so he was led to believe…
DID YOU KNOW? – NORVAL OBVIOUSLY DID NOT! – that at the time Norval was complaining about living on the edge of poverty to Geddes, that his white business partners – Vadas and Robinson – had a secret stash of 384 of his paintings, worth some $20,000,000 to $40,000,000 (twenty to forty million dollars) hidden away – from Norval, from his family and their lawyers – in the basement of Toronto’s Kinsman Robinson Galleries?
Waiting for Norval to die…
And they would be there, for seven years, waiting for the “Inconvenient Indian” to die, until long after his death, according to terms of a secret deal between Vadas and Robinson.
How much of this secret movement of Norval’s millions was his lawyer, Milrad, aware of, and a party to? Whose fiduciary duty was he watching out for, during all this furtive movement of the Indian’s wealth from one white businessman to another?
While Norval died without a nickel to his name and nothing… zip… nada… to leave to his children…
This shocker slipped out inadvertently when a distracted Robinson was giving passionate court testimony on an unrelated matter. (Coming Soon: in the Hatfield v Child Case.)
To what degree, was Norval, fearing dire poverty and possible abandonment, forced to sign affidavits of forgery, against his better judgment, on paintings he very well knew were genuine works he had painted?
What is incontrovertible is that Norval was suffering from Parkinson’s since the early 1990s. A common accompanying condition, in from 30% to 68% of all Parkinson’s patients, is Dementia.
Ritchie Sinclair has proof Norval had left the building in 1997…
Ritchie Says – There is, in fact, lots of testimonial evidence that Norval was a victim of gross mental lapses going back to the mid-90s. According to Ritchie Sinclair, Norval published at least five forgeries in his book “Travels to the House of Invention” in 1997. It seems Norval just didn’t have good recall of what he’d done even then.
And the book’s editor you may ask? Well this was three years before the Principal Morrisseau Dealer would bid ninety (90) different times, all on paintings he later said were all fakes, so he obviously couldn’t tell a fake from a real painting either.
Wolf Says – And certainly Norval told Wolf, his brother and one-time business manager, in 2001, that he couldn’t remember which of his past works he had painted. At that time, Wolf testified, Norval was only lucid for a few minutes at a time, before he drifted off…
Everybody Says – All clear signs of Dementia. And hardly surprising, because by 2000, Norval Morrisseau had the most wasted body (and mind) of any leading Canadian personality. Bar none…
Photo-Ops – He was little more than meat on a wheelbarrow that his “care givers” trundled from photo-op to photo-op to help promote sales of his paintings.
82 year old Joe McLoed called it “elder abuse,” the wringer that the Conspiracy Theorists were putting Norval through. Few disagreed…
Elder Abuse – This is elder abuse of the highest order. What defences could Norval possibly have put up to prevent the exploitation of his name, his signature, his reputation, his very body…?
Helpless – His utter mental and physical incapacity and helplessness, is why, in this entire ten-year period, there are no television or radio interviews of any kind, with Norval, anywhere. And that includes in the entire CBC one-hour show “Life and Times of Norval Morrisseau,” shot in 2004, when the producer couldn’t get him to utter even one word for the program.
His white business managers did all the talking for him…
Because Norval had clearly “left the building,” a long, long time before…
(We’ll set aside Donald Robinson’s self-promotional bluster to the National Post’s Murray Whyte in 2001, that it was “preposterous” for the journalist to even suggest that Norval might not remember every one of his 10,000 paintings he had painted over a 50 year career.)
This would certainly go a long way to explain the countless mistakes, and contradictions, and utterly false calls that are legion in the Affidavits of Forgery – all sent to Kinsman Robinson Galleries’ major business competitors – on which Norval’s signature appears, and which I consider the most unreliable documents I’ve ever encountered in 46 years as a practicing professional historian.
Ask yourself. Would Conspiracy Theorists really be comfortable with making Norval do something so unethical, just to make money?
You know, get Norval to sign documents, they all knew, or should have known, were completely inaccurate, and in fact, often false…
Which brings us back to the current threats from the same people, forcing us to falsify documents to accommodate their bottom line…
What goes around, seems to come around…
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Probing Perjury 7
Ritchie Sinclair claims:
– two Goldi claims were “struck” down by a judge in court, for allegedly failing to show cause…
“A. Mr. and Mrs. Goldie recently sued me in Small Claims Court, Newmarket, though they now live in Toronto.
THE COURT: Sorry, what’s the last name?
A. Mr. and Mrs. Goldie, they sold me – sued me, representing their company, Goldie Productions Limited, and they sued me personally themselves. Their two claims were struck because disclosing no cause of action, and….” (Court Trans/Hatfield v Child: Feb 24, 2012)
- Ritchie Sinclair is a longtime acolyte and business associate of Donald Robinson of Toronto’s Kinsman Robinson Galleries, where he has been a private dinner guest, made video presentations, done guided tours, been praised in KRG blogs, thanked as an authority in Donald Robinson’s “expert” reports, etc. They have been “tag team” partners, and the only witnesses on the losing side, in several court cases (Otavnik v Sinclair 2010, Hatfield v Child 2012) where they have sought, unsuccessfully, to convincingly represent the Conspiracy Theorist position. (The partners have already agreed to join up for more joint court performances in 2013).
The Collaborators Outside the Court – Probably the most damaging photo ever published about a judicial proceeding in Canadian history; I predict it will be used in legal text books, by generations to come. Sinclair and Robinson right, outside the courtroom where the tag-team performed for Conspiracy Theorist Proxy #4, Margaret Hatfield . The association has cost her some $40,000 wasted on a case she could never win.
My Take: Perjury, Delusion, or Dementia?
Ritchie Sinclair is a well-known white Canadian Indian imposter/impersonator.
Just how many false statements is it possible to make under oath, in a couple of sentences?
We are suing Ritchie Sinclair for malicious defamation of our Morrisseau paintings.
He falsely claims the action was launched in Newmarket, when it was initiated in Brampton, which is nowhere near Newmarket, nor even in the same jurisdiction.
He falsely claims we live in Toronto, which we have not, for over 50 years, but have resided for decades in Mississauga.
He falsely claims “two claims were struck,” creating two falsehoods: that the claims were “struck,” or ordered removed which is a total falsehood, and that a judge knocked down our claims, which is another complete falsehood.
He falsely claims “because disclosing no cause of action” trying to intimate there was no merit to our case.
In spite of the fact that Soma has been authenticated by Donald Robinson, Norval Morrisseau, and Kenneth J Davies, as an authentic Morrisseau, Sinclair apparently “knows best,” and has kept on posting it as a forgery on his website. So much for his professed concern about forgeries, when he overrules the “Top Three” in the field. Clearly malice is his only intent.
We sued him in August 2011, for maliciously defamation and for devaluing our paintings on his website.
We had protested to him, in February 2012, when he willfully published private information about our mutual Settlement Conference, in total violation of Ontario Court Rules, as he very well knew. Not only that, but he falsified the information that he chose to publish.
Seeking to score points on behalf of the Conspiracy Theorists he published that our two claims “were struck down by the Judge” and “showing no cause of action” which was a total and absolute lie.
We warned him that he was breaching the privacy of our Settlement Conference, and reminded him that he was also breaking Ontario Court rules, as well as making false statements. When we asked him to remove these illegal and false statements from his malicious and defamatory website, he refused, in fact choosing to accelerate the defamation by publishing more stuff.
We protested to the court, in a Motion heard before Deputy Judge KF McCrae, on Dec. 5, 2012 in Brampton, ON.
Though certified by the “Holy Trinity” of Morrisseau authenticators – Robinson, Morrisseau, and Davies – Sinclair maliciously posts this on his defamatory website.
Justice McCrae sternly upbraided Sinclair, saying what he did was a clear violation of court rules.
He also told him that the information he published was also incorrect. He told him sternly, that “What you said was not true,” and told him, firmly, to remove his misinformation from his website, instantly.
Sinclair argued back, that what he published was true, saying he wanted some time to respond to the Judge’s order.
Justice McCrae grew visibly angry, leaning forward and sternly glared at Sinclair, “I repeat what you said was not true. And I want it gone now!”
The Judge’s manner alarmed even Sinclair, who muttered he would comply.
Justice McCrae awarded us court costs of $150, against Sinclair. Other judges pointedly denied Sinclair’s request for court costs, telling him that they rightfully belonged to us, if we had asked – we didn’t – or awarded them to us without us asking. We weren’t intersted in penalizing anyone or winning cheap shots. We were interested only in courts ruling fairly on material points.
It would be one of 8 rulings out of 8, in which four different judges in public hearings in our case, found in our favour and against Sinclair – Holub (1), McCrae (1), Bobesich (1), and Filkin (5).
Summary of the Motions in Goldi (Plaintiff) v Sinclair (Defendant) – Filed Aug 16, 2011
Plaintiff’s Motion 1 – GRANTED by Justice Holub – Nov 16, 2012 – The Goldi Productions Ltd. Motion, requesting to postpone the trial, was granted by Judge Holub, because (1) we had not been provided with any printed documents at all by the Defendant, though we had provided all our 11 books of documents in support of the Plaintiff’s Claim, on May 1, seven months before.
The stay was also granted (2) because of the delay in publication of Judge Paul Martial’s finding from the Hatfield v Child case. We had requested the adjournment in our case so we could benefit from and acquire (a) the Hatfield v Child court transcripts and (b) Judge Paul Martial’s finding in that case.
Plaintiff’s Motion 2 – GRANTED by Justice McCrae – Dec 5, 2012 – The Goldi Productions Ltd. Motion requesting to have the Defendant Sinclair remove (1) illegal – a gross violation of Court Rules – (2) deliberately distorted, and (3) fallacious information about the Feb 8, 2012 Settlement Conference from his web site was granted
Justice McCrae declared the published information was a (1) violation of Court Rules, furthermore that (2) “what you (Defendant Sinclair) said and published was not true,” and that he (3) he wanted it all removed “immediately.”
At Justice McCrae’s discretion – we did not ask – we were awarded Court Costs of $150.
Plaintiff’s Motion 3 – GRANTED by Justice Bobesich – Jan 24, 2013 – The Goldi Productions Ltd. Motion requesting to adjourn the hearing of the Defendant’s five part Motion was granted because the Defendant Sinclair had not given us the requisite amount of time to prepare a defence.
On Nov 16, Judge Holub ordered Sinclair to file his change of venue Motion by Dec 31, 2012. Sinclair filed it on Dec 28, the year’s last business day, and was given a court date of Jan 24, for a hearing.
Clearly intending to use ambush tactics, the Defendant Sinclair waited almost another three weeks before mailing us notification of our court appearance, so that we would not have adequate time to prepare and file a defence.
The Defendant’s late and delayed posting was a clear and intended violation of court rules, as it did not meet the minimum mailing time necessary for adequate service, leaving us only five days to prepare. We asked for adequate time to respond and the Court agreed, granting us (1) an adjournment and (2) a full month to prepare.
Sinclair’s request asking for us to be docked court costs was denied by Justice Bobesich, saying that court costs were ours, not Sinclair’s, by right, as we were the winning litigant. However, we did not ask for Sinclair to be docked costs.
Defendant’s Motions 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 – DENIED by Justice Filkin – Feb 26, 2013 – All five Motions requested by the Defendant Ritchie Sinclair were quashed.
– DENIED – request to change the venue to the Toronto Small Claims Court
– DENIED – request to stay or dismiss the action
– DENIED – request a declaration that the Plaintiff is a vexatious litigant
– DENIED – request to seal prohibited information and strike out inflammatory statements
– DENIED – request an undertaking for the plaintiff to provide further particulars
Without our asking Justice Filkin chose to award us Court Costs of $100.
So far from any judge or court, striking down any of our motions, they have – unanimously – found in our favour in every case.
Probing Perjury 6
Donald Robinson claims:
– that all the Morrisseaus sold at Randy Potters – some 2,000, out of which he bought 31 himself – were cheap and lousy fakes that even an amateur could pick out
“Q. Schiller: Okay; well, let’s break it down. You believe that the Potter source paintings are all fakes; correct?
A. Robinson: Yes I do.” (Court Trans/Hatfield v Child: Feb 23, 2012 p 2)
“Q. Schiller: And do you believe that the actions of Artworld of Sherway along with Jim White, who was the consignor of the painting, amount to some form of fraudulent scheme?
A. Robinson: I certainly do.
Q. And you believe that Donna Child is involved in that fraudulent scheme?
A. Yes.” (Court Trans/Hatfield v Child: Feb 23, 2012 p 4)
Background: With that claim, expressed as an absolute totality, without a single reservation, telling Judge Martial in the Hatfield v Child case, that it involved “the greatest fraud in Canadian art history,“ Donald Robinson first went public, on May 18, 2001, in the National Post. He then claimed that the world was suddenly inundated with hundreds (later thousands) of Morrisseau forgeries, created by a single (later umpteen) forgers, and they were all being auctioned by Randy Potter and then resold by Robinson’s major business competitors, like Jim White and Artworld of Sherway.
My Take: Perjury, Delusion or Dementia?
I don’t believe for a second, that there is, in this world or the next, a single person who believes Donald Robinson – whether he claims this, in front of a judge, or anywhere else – and that includes himself…
Here’s why:
My favourite memory of the Straight Arrow in a typical pose.
Refunds for Fake Morrisseaus – Out of some 2,000 sales, over 10 years, not a single Morrisseau painting was ever returned to Randy Potter for a refund.
Not a single customer ever asked for his money back, or complained they were sold a fake. A truly awesome encomium for honesty for a retail business, of an astonishing 100%.
Now go ahead and name me the Toronto businessman who can claim that?
And even Robinson, who bought 31 Morrisseaus for $53,228.73 never brought a single one back, never asked for a refund, nor complained to Randy he was sold a fake.
- “Mr. Donald Robinson has never returned or attempted to return any of the Norval Morrisseau paintings he purchased from my auction and later implied were fake in the May 18, 2001, National Post article.” (Affidavit, Randy Potter, Mar 11, 2005)
And another thing: Robinson, whose chutzpah is nothing if not legendary, did bring back one painting he claimed was a fake, demanding a refund for $267.50. But – you won’t believe this – not for a Morrisseau, but for a Robert Davidson…
Without saying a word – I’m absolutely certain – Randy, with no questions asked, paid Robinson the entire amount he demanded, down to the last 50 cents.
And, in the process, going far, far beyond the bounds of what any other retailer, let alone any auctioneer, on the planet, would ever do to satisfy a disgruntled customer.
Because Robinson, in another display of his legendary chutzpah, came back to demand a refund on the Davidson, a full 14 months after buying the painting.
No auction anywhere in Canada would ever have given him a refund, even had he brought it back a day after buying it. And no Canadian fine art auction will give refunds beyond a month after purchase and then only if you have incontrovertible proof from an accepted independent authority that your painting is a fake.
They would have all, unanimously, laughed Robinson out of the building.
Robinson very well knew all that. It was all standard in the professional world he lived in.
But he knew something else too, of which he was equally sure.
That Randy Potter was a decent guy, far above the norm in the auction – let alone the fine art business.
That Robinson could demand something so absolutely inappropriate for a long-ago completed sales transaction because he knew Randy would come through, with the $267.50, no matter how outrageous was Robinson’s demand.
But Robinson knew something else: he had to move fast – in a manner of speaking – if he ever expected to get his 200 bucks back.
He very well knew, the day he went to get his refund, that he had already slammed Randy in private to a journalist who would publish the next month, in the national media, his accusation that Randy was a lowlife scammer. He probably knew after his accusations came out, in the National Post, even Randy’s good will might have been stretched past the point of no return, and he might not give him back his two hundred bucks.
This is all stunning proof that actions speak louder than words, all around.
About the honesty of some people.
Which brings us back to the alleged Morrisseau fakes… With all the evidence in, where, on the planet, is there a single person left, anywhere, who believes that Robinson personally, truly believed the 31 Morrisseau paintings he bought at Potters really were fakes?
Would a guy who played hardball over $200 just throw away $54,000 on fake paintings?
The inexplicable: Why did Robinson or the Conspiracy Theorists never take the Wanker 31 to court?
In the end, for all their malicious defamation in the national media and the courts, neither Donald Robinson nor his Conspiracy Theorists ever took Randy Potter to court.
Or anyone else for allegedly selling the thousands of fakes they got at Randy Potters.
Even though they had 13 years and counting to do it, and supposedly thousands of “forgeries” to pick from, and even though they slammed numerous decent Canadian business people in the art world as lowlife scammers.
Which has to be the ultimate proof for sincerity.
Why not? Obviously none of them had proof of anything, but that their claims would only get them laughed out of a police station or a court. And they very well knew it. Why?
Because all along the Conspiracy Theory was nothing more than just shabby MBA 101: control supply and demand by saying only your own paintings are guaranteed to be authentic; that thousands of paintings sold by your business competitors are fakes; and right the balance in your favour by ruining the reputation of your business competitors.
The Absent-minded Donald Robinson:
There are two more extremely important facts that Donald Robinson wants the world to forget about Randy Potter paintings:
First, that the “Holy Trinity” authenticated paintings “FISH & SOMA 1976” came from Randy Potter.
I own, “FISH & SOMA 1976,” the only Morrisseaus in the world which are “Holy Trinity” authenticated, by Donald Robinson himself – he was the under bidder and authenticated them verbally to my face; Norval Morrisseau, the artist; and Kenneth J Davies, one of Canada’s top handwriting analysis experts who certified them both as signed with DNA certainty, by Norval Morrisseau, and by no one else.
These two paintings “FISH & SOMA 1976” offer a truly stunning view behind the curtain of secrecy which Donald Robinson and the Norval Morrisseau Heritage Society have sought to cover up “the biggest fraud in Canadian art history.” (More to come.)
Secondly, Robinson also chose to overlook the fact that two of the Potter paintings he defamed as forgeries, “Spirits 2b” and “Father and Son 1977,” were proven to be authentic by forensic scientists, and became the winning proof in the two largest successful lawsuits alleging defamation, won in 2008 by Joe Otavnik v Vadas and Morrisseau (for $11,000) and Michael Moniz v CTVglobemedia (for some $25,000.)
Why have these been completely hidden from public view by Donald Robinson and the Norval Morrisseau Heritage Society?
Neither Defendants (including Morrisseau and Vadas, his business manager & the Globe and Mail) in those two landmark cases, believed, for a second, the Robinson claim that the Potter paintings were fakes. They paid up – big time – because they both agreed they had defamed genuine Morrisseau paintings.
It gets worse. Neither defendant – and that includes Donald Robinson’s own artist Norval Morrisseau and his business manager Gabe Vadas – even dared to go to court to face a judge with their supposed proof of forgery.
They both figured that any deal they could make outside court would be far preferable to that imposed by an angry judge who scoffed at their proof of forgeries, and an artist expert who couldn’t even mumble a word…
Both Morrisseau and CTVglobemedia begged for an out-of-court settlement, which Otavnik and Moniz both agreed to, knowing that the authenticity of their paintings, which Morrisseau, Vadas, Robinson, and the Globe called fakes, had been vindicated, and were safe from further malicious and defamatory statements.
In fact, every single painting from Randy Potter that has ever been analyzed by three top Canadian independent forensic experts, has come back as certified, with DNA certainty, as authentically signed by Norval Morrisseau without a single dissenting finding of any kind.
Which has to be a stunning affirmation for the honesty of Randy Potter, for the absolute authenticity of every Morrisseau painting he ever sold.
It explains the inexplicable: why Donald Robinson never, ever, brought back a single one of his Morrisseau “fakes” for a refund.
And leaves us to question: exactly what is the value of his court testimony on what he calls “the greatest fraud in Canadian art history?”
Probing Perjury 5
Ritchie Sinclair claims:
– to be a 1979 graduate of George Brown College, Toronto, ON
“# RITCHIE SINCLAIR – SWORN
EVIDENCE IN-CHIEF BY MR. SINCLAIR:
Justice Godfrey: All right, what would you like to tell me, Mr. Sinclair?
A: I’m sorry Your Honour?
Justice Godfrey: What would you like to tell me?
A: Uh, I am a graduate of Commercial Art at George Brown College, 1979.
(Court Trans/Otavnik v Sinclair: Part 6 ovs p158
- Ritchie Sinclair is a longtime acolyte and business associate of Donald Robinson of Toronto’s Kinsman Robinson Galleries, where he has been a private dinner guest, made video presentations, done guided tours, been praised in KRG blogs, thanked as an authority in Donald Robinson’s “expert” reports, etc. They have been “tag team” partners, and the only witnesses on the losing side, in several court cases (Otavnik v Sinclair 2010, Hatfield v Child 2012) where they have sought, unsuccessfully, to convincingly represent the Conspiracy Theorist position. (They have already signed up for more joint court performances in 2013).
My Take: Perjury, Delusion or Dementia?
Ritchie Sinclair is a well-known white Canadian Indian imposter/impersonator. Alas, we fear, he’s also an academic imposter/impersonator…
In his very first sentence in replying to a request for a bio from Judge Godfrey, Sinclair lies.
He claims to have graduated from George Brown College somewhere in the 1979-80 period. That means recognized by a paper of some kind, right?
Community Colleges were started in Ontario, in the 1960s, during the years I was a high school teacher in Toronto. At that time an Ontario High School grad needed five years, including Grade XIII, to graduate; Ritchie Sinclair claims to have had four years to his credit.
Community colleges were started to put students who weren’t academically inclined – the four-year stream kids, without the abilities to advance in the academic stream to go on to university and the professions – to learn some technical skills instead of just becoming “high school dropouts” which they were considered at the time.
In spite of Mr. Sinclair’s fondness, in court, of calling his teacher there a professor, the community colleges at that time were staffed with technical teachers, who had more “hands-on” trades skills, than “professorial” academic credentials, which is why they were hired.
No Community Colleges in the 60s and 70s were degree granting institutions. Even in 2013, though some now give degrees in a few subjects, the overwhelming majority of credentials they grant to students continue to be certificates and diplomas.
In court Sinclair told Judge Godfrey he was a graduate of George Brown College, trying to build on one dishonesty – that he had a college graduate pedigree of some kind – to fox the judge into believing he’s maybe even got a modern style university degree, when he doesn’t even have the most rudimentary piece of paper colleges gave out during their early years.
“I Have a Degree” – On one of his other websites, in fact, Sinclair actually states “I have a degree.” Though he is – understandably – not forthcoming where and when he got it.
Lots of degrees, we all know, are available online, with affordable and quickie M.A.s, and Ph.D.s arriving by email daily… It appears Sinclair may have sent his money…
In court testimony on different occasions Sinclair was forced to admit, through rigorous cross-examination that he actually never even completed the single one-year college preparatory course, which he attended sporadically for a few months, but leaving before he received any kind of formal graduation diploma, certificate, or degree of any kind.
The course he took, and dropped out of, was actually an introductory course, designed to help students who wanted to explore art as a career, a chance to dabble a bit , while they try to figure out what to do with their life.
The most talented and most motivated would then go on to the Ontario College of Art, or attend a University and get a degree in Fine Art.
Others, like Ritchie Sinclair, would just drop out, and hang out… And thirty years later, their art prices would reflect bad life choices early on:
People will pay more for a crappy washstand than for Ritchie Sinclair paintings.
During the Hatfield trial Defence Counsel Brian Schiller tried to come to grips with Sinclair’s mysterious, sketchy, and often non-existent academic record, to discover what, if anything, of substance was behind his huge malicious and defamatory attacks on so many genuine Morrisseau paintings, and other First Nations artists.
- Q. So you didn’t complete your schooling at George Brown, instead….
A. No…
Q. …it….
A. …it was, it was completed. As far as my professor was concerned I, I completed the dictates of my course; he was overjoyed for me, and the course was a year-long course; I was…
Q. So….
A. …already…
Q. So, sorry….
A. …into it…
Q. You’re…
A. …nine months…
Q. You….
A. …at that time, so I would have got my diploma anyhow but…
Q. But you didn’t….
A. …I got to…
Q. You don’t have….
A. …leave early.
Q. You don’t have a diploma, do you, sir?
A. Well, I left without picking it up but I was told at the, at that meeting with Morrisseau, “You’ve got your diploma.” I mean, I’m sure I could get, get whatever it was but….
Q. So your evidence is that, even though you didn’t complete the course, because you were going off with Mr. Morrisseau that qualified you to graduate; is that what you’re saying?
A. That’s what my professor said and that’s what, see, the, the whole purpose of the course was to be hired in the field.
Q. And how long was the course?
A. It was a year-long.
Q. And you finished eight months?
A. Nine.
Q. Nine. And were you given some designation as a result of that course?
A. No; nor did I ever use such a thing such a designation.
Q. And what did that course qualify you to do?
A. Qualified me to do typeset; set-up; advertising; letter-set; very basic things that nobody uses any more.” (Court Trans/Hatfield v Child: Feb 23, 2012 p 124)
So, Sinclair, just like he “dropped out” of high school, he also “dropped out” of community college without even completing a single year.
So the Community Colleges, which were established in Ontario in the 1960s, especially to help out “problem kids” like Sinclair, failed him and let him drift away to an aimless existence, and finally end up as a Conspiracy Theorist “enforcer” which, apparently pays better than his life as an artist.
He finally testified, he learned nothing useful in the few months he did attend, so it was no big loss. So his only credentials are four years in high school. We think…
Offering some explanation why this self-proclaimed “Morrisseau expert” is not mentioned in any Morrisseau literature anywhere, and why he has made so many hundreds of utterly false appraisals in incorrectly calling so many forensically authenticated Morrisseau paintings forgeries.
In fact Sinclair is unique in Canada, the only person who claims to be an “expert” who has no paper credentials of any kind, and no record of genuine achievements, or is not mentioned in any professional literature in fields he pretends to be noteworthy.
He is not only a white Indian imposter/impersonator; he is also an academic imposter/impersonator.
Posted in Art Cartel, Art Galleries, Court Cases, Perjury or Dementia
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Probing Perjury 4
Ritchie Sinclair claims:
– to be a Canadian Indian
- “In 1997 at the McMichael Gallery, that Bear Dance ceremony that Mr. Robinson mentioned, that was my initiation for taking responsibility for the continuation of the Woodland School of Art, which is a school of art that NM created himself. In other words, the style of art that Morrisseau created didn’t exist before Morrisseau created it. Um, there are hundreds of native artists that have been spawned from, from this, and I am one of them.” (Court Trans/Otavnik v Sinclair: OvsS Mar 18, 2010 – p159)
Ritchie Sinclair is a well-known white Canadian Indian imposter/impersonator.
Ritchie Sinclair is a longtime acolyte and business associate of Donald Robinson of Toronto’s Kinsman Robinson Galleries, where he has been a private dinner guest, made video presentations, done guided tours, been praised in KRG blogs, thanked as an authority in Donald Robinson’s “expert” reports, etc. They have been “tag team” partners, and the only witnesses on the losing side, in several court cases (Otavnik v Sinclair 2010, Hatfield v Child 2012) where they have sought, unsuccessfully, to convincingly represent the Conspiracy Theorist position. (The partners have already agreed to join up for more joint court performances in 2013).
My Take: Perjury, Delusion, or Dementia?
Sinclair has repeatedly, directly and indirectly, tried to foist on court judges – like on Judge Godfrey above – and on the public, his pretence that he is a Canadian Indian.
It all began in September 2008, a year after Norval died. (He didn’t dare do it while the artist was alive.)
A typical example of how a “pure white” artist like Sinclair tries to disguise his origins and ride on Indian coattails to capitalize on the fame and talent of others.
Thereafter Sinclair, disguising himself with his pseudo-Indian nick-name “Stardreamer” would never, ever again, write his own name without putting Norval’s name, and his personal association with him, immediately ahead of his own.
Left a poster where Sinclair and Mark Anthony Jacobson – a fellow “enforcer” for the Conspiracy Theorists, and the operator of the second most vile website in Canadian history – had a one night showing.
In this way this white dude from downtown Toronto hoped to ride on Norval’s coattails to financial glory, as the world came to celebrate Canada’s top Aboriginal artist.
On Aug. 26, 2008, Sinclair emailed Ugo Matulic, asking him to publicize him and his new business initiative to link his name to Norval’s.
“Attached is an ad for my new show (Hope you can attend!). I’d love it if you chose to post it. Here is some writing about my “using Norval’s name” to promote my career that you can also post if you wish.
“In my new Exhibition, “Spirit,” I am capitalizing on Morrisseau’s name and fame, however my motive for doing so is not financial…
“Norval fully supports this initiative, as do other First Nations elders. When “$” people question the integrity of “using his name” I’ll just say that I’m doing my job, just as Norval wished me to. He wants me to “use his name”! For Stardreamer the “emergence” begins on September 6, 2008, at the Scollard Street Gallery (112 Scollard Street in Toronto).” (Matulic Archive)
How Norval communicated his “support” is part of Sinclair’s “sham-man-istic” mystery; he’d been dead for a year, at least…
Norval Morrisseau, apparently speaking from the “Happy Hunting Ground,” told Ritchie Sinclair to “go ahead, use my name however you want…”
In fact Sinclair is totally, in every way, simply a white Indian imposter/impersonator trying to appropriate a uniquely ethno-cultural art form, which is among the very few in the world that is totally a one-of-a-kind Canadian Indian invention, and a mode of cultural expression entirely their own.
Unlike French Impressionism, the Canadian Group of Seven, the Surrealists, etc. the Woodland AKA Anishinaabe school of art is DNA centered – unique to Canadian First Nations who alone, created this novel mode of artistic expression. Period. Totally without the help of white self-promoters like Ritchie Sinclair.
Just like a man, no matter how many girdles and silk stockings he puts on, can never become a legitimate stand-in, or be a believable spokesperson for what it is like to be a woman, so no white artist – like Sinclair – can ever stand in for Canadian Indians and claim to be a legitimate voice of the Anishinaabe school of painting.
It is why art collectors will not buy Inuit art made by white men, African drums made in China, or Woodland (Anishinaabe) art made by Ritchie Sinclair. He will always be a white dude in downtown Toronto, no matter how many Indian names he appropriates, or how often he dresses up in his Davy Crockett buckskin jacket, and mumbles Indian chants and mumbo-jumbo to try to disguise the fact that he not only lacks the DNA, but the entire cultural and historical background that gives the school its cachet and resonance for collectors.
Grrrrh… Kinsman Robinson Galleries has pointedly refused to recognize Ritchie Sinclair as an artist of any standing, at all, by consistenly refusing to represent his art. The owners clearly value him as an “enforcer” they can use to promote their Conspiracy Theory, and dismiss him as a painter of any value. The realization is enough to make a guy, kept standing outside, looking in, howl his outrage, and want to throttle somebody…
Sinclair has used his Indian disguise for years, just to try to sell his art. Without success; it could never be otherwise.
Hell, everyone knows that “Stardreamer” is only a “Daydreamer” pursuing a totally dead end art form for him, as a white man.
We have so far failed to find a gallery that shows his Indian art. Here are some of the galleries who have definitely turned him down, and declined his request to become an agent for selling his art: Kinsman Robinson Galleries, Liss Gallery, and Artworld of Sherway.
It could make a guy sort of angry; very angry… and sort of want to strike out…
In 2004 numerous works of his – many were giant panels of original art – went to auction, after being sold off for nonpayment of storage locker fees – in Port Hope, Ontario. They sold for $25, $55, and $65 each.
At an auction Ritchie Sinclair testified was only “a third-tier auction house,” people were still discerning enough to want to pay more for a crappy washstand than for Ritchie Sinclair paintings.
The lesson for an artist: there’s more money to be made as a Conspiracy Theorist “enforcer” than an artist.
$30 Anybody…? The Indian art by a white man that nobody wanted in the dying days of the Lane Gallery.
In 2010 we visited the Lane Gallery – a neighbor of Toronto’s Kinsman Robinson Galleries – just weeks before it went bankrupt.
In its front window it boasted an exhibition of Ritchie Sinclair’s art.
When we inquired, as interested customers, from the gallery owner, about the background of the artist, Ritchie Sinclair, was he white or what?
He replied, “Oh no, he’s of Aboriginal background.”
Now where would a gallery owner learn that except from the artist who provided him his fabricated bio along with his paintings?
Sinclair had already told Court Judge MD Godfrey, that he was an Indian artist. So here we are again…
This is the second gallery we know of, that Sinclair closed down when he was the featured artist.
The first was the Scollard Gallery, in October 2008, where he first tied his name to that of Norval Morrisseau.
If Norval was speaking from beyond – as Sinclair seems to imply – was he sending Sinclair a message?
Like maybe: “close the show Ritchie; cut the crap…”
Sinclair’s exhibitions have been the death knell for two galleries we know of. When they start showing Canadian Indian art by a white man, they are in their death throes. It’s not rocket science. No serious collector of any kind wants the stuff.
The Scollard Gallery, which closed permanently, shortly after Sinclair’s show opened, posted a fond farewell notice on the internet, thanking a long list of artists it was proud to have been associated with over the years.
Ritchie Sinclair the white Indian imposter/impersonator is not among them.
Within a matter of hours of the closing of his Scollard show Sinclair went ballistic, launching numerous physical assaults against neighbouring Morrisseau dealer Joe McLeod, yelling that he was going “to take down the whole Morrisseau market.”
The police later arrested him and charged him for multiple instances of Criminal Harassment of 80 year-old McLeod, on the street, at Joe’s car, his place of business, and his home. Once even setting off the burglar alarm, at 2:00 in the morning.
- Sinclair then put up his notorious malicious website which has done more to destroy valuations in Canadian Indian art than anything since the Canadian government attacked the art and cultural regalia associated with the potlatch of the Kwakwaka’wakw ceremonies at Alert Bay, BC in the 1920s.
Sinclair is in good company, with a long list of other bad white dudes who have gone out of their way to make Canada an unhappy and inhospitable place for people of Aboriginal background.
Posted in Art Cartel, Art Galleries, Court Cases, Perjury or Dementia
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Probing Perjury 3
Ritchie Sinclair claims:
– to be a member of the NMHS (Norval Morrisseau Heritage Society)
“The victim in this matter, Richie Sinclair, is a protégé of the late Canadian artist, Norval Morrisseau. He also goes by the name “Stardreamer.” The victim is a member of the NMHS (Norval Morrisseau Historical (sic) Society.) ” (Police Document taking down statement by Ritchie Sinclair)
Ritchie Sinclair is a well-known white Canadian Indian imposter/impersonator.
• Ritchie Sinclair is a longtime acolyte and business associate of Donald Robinson of Toronto’s Kinsman Robinson Galleries, where he has been a private dinner guest, made video presentations, done guided tours, been praised in KRG blogs, thanked as an authority in Donald Robinson’s “expert” reports, etc. They have been “tag team” partners, and the only witnesses on the losing side, in several court cases (Otavnik v Sinclair 2010, Hatfield v Child 2012) where they have sought, unsuccessfully, to convincingly represent the Conspiracy Theorist position. (The partners have already agreed to join up for more joint court performances in 2013).
My Take: Perjury, Delusion or Dementia?
Ritchie Sinclair’s claim to the police as noted above is a total lie.
He has never been a member of the NMHS, founded in 2005, as an “outreach” branch plant of Toronto’s Kinsman Robinson Galleries.
In fact in Criminal Harassment charges, filed by the police against Sinclair for repeatedly, physically threatening the 80 year old Joseph McLeod, at his car, in the street, at his place of business, and setting off the burglar alarm at his home, one of his accompanying verbal outbursts was Sinclair’s anger that he had NOT been invited by Donald Robinson to become a member of the NMHS.
As a result of which he threatened that “he would take down the whole Morrisseau market,” as testified by Joe McLeod.
Sinclair’s academic record is somewhere between spotty to non-existent, him having spent only a few months at a community college introductory level commercial art course before dropping out around 1980, (testimony to Defence Counsel Brian Schiller) and so not qualifying for any certificate or diploma of any kind.
“Q. And what did that course qualify you to do?
A. Qualified me to do typeset; set-up; advertising; letter-set; very basic things that nobody uses any more.” (Court Trans/Hatfield v Child: Feb 23, 2012 p 124)
Donald Robinson huffily testified about the quality of people he wanted in the NMHS.
“THE COURT: Your reference to the initials N-M-H-S, again, please?
A. Norval Morrisseau Heritage Society.
MR. SCHILLER: Q. Is Ritchie Sinclair a member of that society?
A. No. The Society has respected academic people in the, in their, in their (sic) grouping; people from galleries, national institutions, for the most part.
Q. Okay.” (Court Trans/Hatfield v Child: Feb 23, 2012 p 46)
So much for Sinclair’s supposed membership in an elite – however wrong-headed and misguided – group of Ottawa-based academics!
But, hey, Canada is a free speech society, and everyone can say anything, no matter how ludicrous, apparently pretty well anywhere, including to the police, and in court, under oath.
And not have to worry about being penalized for it…
Probing Perjury 2
Donald Robinson claims:
– his son Paul Robinson, detected the “fakes” first, and warned him not to buy more paintings at Randy Potters
Background: During the Hatfield trial, Donald Robinson did allow, to Judge Paul Martial twice, that he was a bit of a dunce, but that his son Paul was wiser than he was, and caught on to the supposed “fakes” quicker than he did, and tried to dissuade him from continuing to buy more suspect Potter paintings.
Did Paul Robinson steer his father Donald right or wrong?
- “At, at one point, I was still convinced that they were good and my son, who’s running the gallery today, tried to tell me they were not good and I still overrode him and bought a few…” (Court Transcripts, p 18, Hatfield v Child May 31, 2011)
In case you missed his court testimony in May 2011, Robinson repeated it for you, under oath, a year later.
- “I should say that my son, Paul, after about half-way through when those purchases were made, perhaps five or six at a time at various auctions, my son Paul at the gallery, who now runs the gallery, he told me that I should not buy any more and he was suspicious of them, and I argued with him and bought a few more, to my great regret.”
Q. Okay, so your son had suspicions…
A. He did.
Q. …you didn’t. (Court Transcripts, p 20, Hatfield v Child Feb 23, 2012)
My Take: Perjury, Delusion, or Dementia?
Really? Now why would he say something so silly? Twice. In court before a judge?
That “argument” would have been something to see…
Oh, and “to my great regret…” What was the problem he regretted? He never returned a single one back as a supposed fake; so he couldn’t have been unhappy. He never asked for a refund for a single supposed fake; so he couldn’t have believed he was ripped off. And he even told Judge Martial he sold many of them successfully “for a small profit.” Where is the evidence for regret and unhappiness?
That is nothing to sneeze at; it should be a point of pride! Considering he paid $54,000 for fakes, which he testified in court were “worth nothing” were “worth zero” and managed to turn a profit on some $54,000…
So much of this is odd indeed, because two documents exist which prove exactly the total opposite – that it was Paul who introduced his Dad to the mother lode of genuine Morrisseaus at Potter’s in the first place. Paul’s signature on an appraisal of two paintings from the Potter auction is on a document that immediately predates his father attending his first buying spree there.
The evidence is pretty clear that far from trying to dissuade his father from going to Potter’s, it was in fact Paul, after being alerted by the paintings Matt Fountain brought into the gallery to be authenticated, who sent his Dad to investigate this sudden flood of Morrisseaus being auctioned.
Thanks to Paul’s auction alert, it’s pretty clear, that his father then went to numerous auctions, bid on 90 lots and ended up with 31 Morrisseau BDP paintings.
There is a second document also signed by Paul, on another appraisal of two paintings of the same type from the same auction, issued a full five months after his father told the National Post that all the paintings at Randy Potter’s were fakes…
He should have told his son who apparently still hadn’t wised up many months later and was still cashing in on appraisals, for Potter-sourced paintings his Dad had been calling fakes for months…
Can anyone figure out why Donald Robinson would testify in court to something which is the complete opposite of the historical documentary record?
Posted in Art Cartel, Art Galleries, Court Cases, Perjury or Dementia
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Probing Perjury 1
Donald Robinson claims:
– Norval Morrisseau never, ever signed the backs of paintings in black drybrush paint, that all such BDPs are fakes
Principal Morrisseau Dealer AKA Principal Conspiracy Theorist AKA Donald Robinson. No matter which disguise he uses, no one in Canadian art history has ever before, so aggressively sought out the media spotlight for himself, by setting out to deliberately place himself, and his Conspiracy Theory about supposed Morrisseau forgeries, at the centre of a public discussion from one end of the country to the other. One can only wonder, why a person would support a Conspiracy Theory that is universally discredited by the scientific community, and put at obvious risk his entire credibility as a Morrisseau authenticator of any level
“In twenty-eight years of dealing in Morrisseau’s art, I observed that Norval had rarely written anything on the back of any canvas, but when he did, it was always in pencil or ballpoint pen – never in black paint.” (Court Trans/Hatfield v Child: May 31, 2011 p 32)
“And never ever have I ever seen one, nor have I ever known anybody to know one that has – was painted in – in black paint in the back… Morrisseau did not use drybrush paint to sign, title, or date his art in the 1970’s, or any other time.” (Court Trans/Hatfield v Child Sep 1, 2011 p 33) (Glossary: BDP)
“It’s worth nothing… It’s zero.” Donald Robinson on the value of each of these thousands of BDPs. (Court Trans/Hatfield v Child: May 31, 2011 p 44)
My Take: Perjury, Delusion or Dementia?
“It’s a Lie” – In the Hatfield trial, Morrisseau family members in a group, submitted a sworn Affidavit which called Donald Robinson’s allegations a “LIE.” That they had all seen Norval sign and title his painting exactly like that many times.
Numerous people, most of whom had never previously met each other, or had any association with each other, all separately submitted Affidavits saying that they had – contrary to what Robinson was claiming – seen Norval sign and title the backs of paintings in black paint, many times going back decades to the early 1970s.
Others saw him do it in the 1980s; still others in the 1990s. In Ottawa; in Thunder Bay; in Vancouver.
Wolf Morrisseau, Norval’s younger brother, and for years his business manager, swore he saw Norval do it some 2,000 times or more in the 1970s. In fact he said he was the one who started him doing it, to increase sales in foreign countries where English writing is preferable to Cree Indian syllabics and a lot more universally understandable.
Donald Robinson had an answer for all the sworn affidavits, when questioned by Defence Counsel Robert Dowhan.
“Q. All right, and you tendered as Exhibit 10 to this proceeding a document that you brought yourself that there are one, two, three, four, five, six individuals that say they witnessed Norval Morrisseau sign paintings on the back in black acrylic paint with a brush.
A. Yeah….
Q. They’re all lying?
A. They are all lying, absolutely. They’re complicit in this whole scheme.
Q. All right.” (Court Trans/Hatfield v Child Sep 1, 2011 p 24)
Most Damning of All – the “DNA” Speaks for the BDPs – There are now some 70 forensic findings, by three of Canada’s top handwriting analysis experts who have analyzed the signatures on the back of the very BDPs that Robinson says were all forged.
Without a single dissenting finding, they have unanimously found, with DNA certainty, in every case tested, that the signatures were made by Norval Morrisseau, and could not have been made by anyone else.
But Robinson refuses to recognize any of it charging that the professional forensics experts who have testified in hundreds of court cases – like Dr. Atul K Singla – are liars too.
“… there’s a huge motivation, in my opinion, to produce a false appraisal just to satisfy the person requesting it… I believe fully that the two forensic investigators asked to do these things and have in fact done have stated the, the similarities but completely ignored the differences, and both of those appraisals are, those authentications, handwriting analysis are very badly biased and totally false.” (Court Trans/Hatfield v Child Feb 23, 2012 p 25)
Which makes everything quite simple really: everyone is lying – except Robinson; everyone is self-serving – except Robinson…
In fact the very black paint DNA that Robinson claims is fraudulent saved scores of these genuine Morrisseau paintings from being reduced to rubbish by the Robinson family and their compliant outreach workers at the KRG branch plant operation: the Norval Morrisseau Heritage Society.
Norval wins this one, speaking from the grave, with the handwriting DNA he left on the back of thousands of his paintings from his high period of the 1970s and early 1980s.
But which were a marketing irritant under the skin of the Robinson family and their attempts to sell the wobbly stuff from Norval’s 1990s “Wheelchair Invalid Period” of painting.
NOTE: The Stupid Forger
The forensics experts have the final say about forgers and forged signatures.
The typical BDP signature on the back of almost all of Randy Potter’s Morrisseaus, that Donald Robinson and other Morrisseau collectors saw. The Conspiracy Theorists, at first in love with the signatures, would suddenly change their minds, say the huge signatures on every canvas were all forged, never explaining why such a huge betraying forgery would possibly be put there by even the dumbest forger, knowing it would betray him instantly. In fact the Stupid Forger was turned in by the signature DNA in the end thanks to handwriting analyis by top Canadian forensic scientiests. The Dumb Forger turned out to be, with DNA certainty, none other than Norval Morrisseau himself.
Noting the huge signatures on the back of hundreds of Morrisseau BDPs, complete with titles, with dates, with symbols, with idiosyncratic marks, handwriting analysis experts, like Dr. Atul K Singla, say:
– a forger’s very first concern, above all else, is to avoid getting caught.
– a forger’s second concern is to copy an artist as closely as humanly possible, to avoid getting caught.
– a forger would never write a signature on the back, if the artist never did it, which is what Donald Robinson claims is true.
– a forger would never write in black drybrush on the back, if the artist never did it, which is what Donald Robinson claims is true.
– a forger would always write less, not more. If an artist doesn’t write anything, why would a forger sign a name? If an artist writes only a name, why would a forger add a long title? Or add symbols? Or dates? Each additional bit of writing is another departure from the norm of what the artist would do and so would inevitably trip up a forger, when a handwriting expert gets at it. Why would any forger want to lay all these traps for himself?
– a forger would conform with a passion, and never vary from a known Morrisseau signature. Then why are the signatures wildly all over the place, differing in size, in placement, in care, many harshly clear, and others too faint to make out?
Said John Sommer the Plaintiff’s lawyer and no forensic expert: “Ahaa! Proof of forgery!”
Absolutely not, rebutted Dr. Singla firmly. Only an artist would dare depart from a normal signature, to vary the size, attack of the letters, because – hell – he’s expressing himself, on a good day or a bad day.
A forger would never do that. He conforms, because he knows if he does not, he will get caught.
Dr. Singla said all this points to one thing: the Morrisseau BDP signatures, on the back of the paintings, are absolutely not the work of a forger. And he has an MA and a Ph.D. in forensics to back him up, and the experience of testifying in over 500 court cases dealing with forged signatures.
Finally the BDP DNA of signatures, that have been wildly all over the place have been independently evaluated by three of Canada’s top forensic document examiners and handwriting analysis experts, over the years. The men do not know each other.
Yet in some 70 findings they have unanimously found, with DNA certainty, that these hugely varying, wildly all over the wall signatures are authentic signatures of only one man, the irrepressible Norval Morrisseau, without a single dissenting finding.
And that Donald Robinson is just as wrong as wrong can be for whatever reason.
The “Case of the Missing Paintings”
SHOCKING DISCLOSURE OF THE DAMAGE DONE…
– To Canada’s First Nations Art Heritage by the “Conspiracy Theorists” and their Gullible, Feckless, and Compliant Partners in Cultural Genocide…
Topics:
The Stevens Graph
The Bad & the Beautiful – Part 1
The Bad & the Beautiful – Part 2
The Bad & the Beautiful – Part 3
The Bad & the Beautiful – Part 4
Joyner Canadian Fine Art
Heffel Fine Art
Terror on Elm Street – The Elmwood Spa Book Launch
James slips up – Big Time…
James Stevens
In 2011 James Stevens published “A Picasso in the North Country,” a truly important book, not only in Norval Morrisseau’s life, but in world history. It is a work that rivals in significance, the epic “Picasso: Creator and Destroyer,” one of the landmark biographies of all time, which Arianna Huffington wrote in 1988. (A Picasso in the North Country: Lake Superior Art Gallery, 2011)
It is the information which is outstanding – no we don’t mean the text is great literature – but for what it unveils about the private Morrisseau, “the creator and destroyer,” which we will leave for another day.
Canadians should be eternally grateful to Stevens for compiling a work no one else could have written, and for preserving for the Ages, absolutely vital information about the life of Norval Morrisseau which would have otherwise been lost forever.
Stevens wrote a personal biography, in great graphic detail, of the entire life span of Norval Morrisseau as the artist exposed himself, to intimates, through hundreds of personal vignettes drawn from interviews, diaries, and recordings. Much of it is shocking but highly revelatory, of a man who chose to live by no one’s rules but his own. And go absolutely overboard in doing so.
By 1999 Norval was paying, big time, for living a “no holds barred” lifestyle, for decades. He had the most debilitated body and mind of any leading Canadian of his generation.
Norval chose to live his life the way he lived it, with utter reckless abandon without the least concern for either man or beast; Stevens has equal right to analyze and publish his take on a public figure, warts and all, like Huffington on Picasso, and Issacson on Jobs.
He had a public duty to do so; he and people he sought out had been along for much of the ride…
Picasso, Jobs, and Morrisseau, are giants of creativity in their own fields, but not one of whom I’d ever want to share a dinner table with, or shake hands with. They don’t even rate at the bottom of a list of decent human beings. (More explosive stuff on this to come.)
Stevens clearly also wanted to use his publishing opportunity to do a pictorial book that also mirrored Norval’s life as an artist, with pictures to showcase his artistic output – a catalogue raisonné if you will.
A book of priceless anecdotes, and tell tale pictorials…
He used some 150 pictures to illustrate every period of Norval’s artistic life, from 1950 to 2007 when he died. (Norval’s painting career effectively ended in 1995, according to his son Christian; lasted in full bloom till 2001 according to the Morrisseau art cartel).
The Stevens book should have given us a nice pictorial representation of Norval’s artistic output over time.
It did not; it is a disaster…
But, I believe, it is not Stevens’ fault…
Why? Because I happen to believe that James received a midnight visit, or a SLAPP suit threat, from an aggressive Conspiracy Theorist “Enforcer” who scared the living daylights out of him…
Here’s my take… how I discovered it all…
Plotting Morrisseau’s Art Legacy
Figuring that Stevens was conscientious, and that he had done his best to publish Norval’s most representative paintings from every year – and more when Norval really blossomed – I figured I could tabulate the results, and scale them proportionally, to a bar graph, and so create a representative pictorial display of Norval’s output by year and period.
The resulting “Stevens Graph” would be a measure of Norval’s artistic output as good as any other.
One could easily predict that plotting the pictures should have produced a nice curve, rising steadily as Norval’s power and output rose through the 1960s, and peak powerfully during the late 1970s when he had the most shows, won the most honours, and annually produced the most paintings.
This curve should have at least held in the opening and middle years of the 1980s, before starting to fall off, rapidly in the late 80s and early 90s as Norval’s physical and mental health declined precipitously.
As Norval’s old friend Lloyd Comber, from Pikangikum, said, after he encountered him in 1987, “I noticed that his art wasn’t as good as it used to be.”
The orange “Morrisseau Curve” below shows the peaks of this probable projection. And I expected that Stevens’ pictorial display would reflect that.
I decided to use all the dated pictures that James had published throughout his book, some 81, as the source material to plot.
I knew, starting out, that this methodology would distort my results badly, bulging the graph in the 1970s, when Norval’s brother Wolf encouraged him, big time, to indulge his passion for writing dates on the back of his paintings, and unfortunately, diminishing it, after 1990, when Donald Robinson claims Norval “never even did it once.”
So I was primed to watch out for these distortions in the “Stevens Graph.”
I took 81 dated pictures and logged them, properly scaled, by number to Norval’s lifeline. The green bars of the graph below, reflects the numbers of pictures Stevens selected from every year.
The green Stevens Graph charts the destructive path of the Conspiracy Theorists across Norval’s most prolific period.
The Shocking Stevens Graph – The resulting Stevens Graph is shocking in what it shows:
– a huge overrepresentation in the 1960s
– a huge and inexplicable hole in the 1970s BDP period
– a huge hole after 1989, during Norval’s 17 year “Invalid Period”
I had fully expected the Stevens Graph of green bars to stretch up and touch the orange Morrisseau curve in a rough correlation of sorts.
Nothing of the kind happened.
What the Stevens Graph shows, is abnormality run amok: the sixties spiking unusually high; Norval’s output then declining markedly, and then dying out completely in the early 70s.
It gets worse.
By the mid-70s when Norval received the Order of Canada, had his coffee table book produced, got his Honourary Ph.D. and had the biggest “orange” crush dots (see graph) of art shows of his career, the paintings are all – Pooff – gone.
They are totally missing from Stevens’ published record of pictorials.
It is to me, it is a stunning example of what ART TERRORISM has accomplished to wipe out a whole generation of genuine paintings from a high-end period in the catalogue raisonné of Canada’s top Aboriginal artist.
Where are the missing BDPs from 1974?
Stunningly, and inexplicably, there are no pictures from 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, or 1981, when Norval was widely regarded by experts, to be at the peak of his power.
Which – not coincidentally; but compromisingly – is exactly the period that Donald Robinson and the Conspiracy Theorists have targeted with their campaign against the so-called forgeries.
- Where are the missing BDPs from 1974?
And remember my fear, of getting far too many from this period, when there were more “dated” paintings available, by far, than from any other period of Norval’s entire painting life?
What the hell happened?
I know for a fact that Stevens didn’t lack pictures.
Where are the missing BDPs from 1976?
There are hundreds of pictures from those years available. Many collectors would have gladly loaned them to Stevens.
So I am absolutely sure, that, when Stevens started to assemble his materials during the countdown to publication, and he started to collect images to illustrate his book, he gathered up hundreds of possible paintings from Norval’s high period. Including hundreds of BDPs from the 1970s. Like all those that illustrate this article.
Did he just forget he had them? Did he never realize what a huge hole in Norval’s catalogue raisonné he had created in his book? Why did he ignore them?
Where are the missing BDPs from 1976?
It is all so especially shocking, because – as I noted above with my fear of the ballooning effect – the 70s are when Norval dated his pictures more so than any other time.
I expected an abnormally high spiking of pictures exactly because of that; and an uncommonly low representation from the 60s when Norval didn’t date his paintings aggressively.
Inexplicably, exactly the reverse is shown in the Stevens Graph. The 60s have a huge spike in pictures; the 70s have a total wipe out in representation; and the 1990s and beyond are gone absolutely as well.
Where are the missing BDPs from 1977?
Where are the missing BDPs from 1979?
Something very fishy is going on here.
Why is there this huge hole in the middle of the most powerful painting period in Norval’s catalogue raisonné?
What happened to all the missing pictures – all the BDPs from the 1970s?
The Plot Against the BDPs
I do not know Stevens; I have not talked to Stevens.
But I think I know, with a certainty of somewhere around 100%, exactly what went on.
Here goes:
That Stevens was working on publishing a major book on Morrisseau, was an open secret for the last few years.
The typical BDP signature on the back of almost all of Randy Potter Auctions Morrisseaus, that Donald Robinson and other Morrisseau collectors saw. The Conspiracy Theorists, at first in love with the signatures, would suddenly change their minds, saying the huge signatures on every canvas were all forged, but never explaining why such a huge compromising forgery would possibly be put there by even the dumbest forger, knowing it would betray him instantly. In fact the Stupid Forger was turned in by the signature DNA in the end thanks to handwriting analysis by top Canadian forensic scientists. The Dumb Forger turned out to be, with DNA certainty, none other than Norval Morrisseau himself.
As everyone also knows, Donald Robinson, aided and abetted by a gullible and compliant media, had launched a huge attack against BDPs as forgeries, starting with the National Post article, May 18, in 2001. (Glossary: BDPs)
BDPs are the “1970s style black drybrush signed, titled, and dated on the back” pictures. They are from Norval’s high period. when he was hugely prolific and did much of his best work. Donald Robinson has sworn in court testimony, on multiple occasions, that BDPs are all forgeries – that Norval never painted them, nor signed a single one of them in that style.
He charged that these BDPs are all part of the thousands of forgeries he claims to have discovered, that are out there, produced by a diabolical – but always unidentified – syndicate of forgers, and connivingly, being sold as genuine by his leading business competitors in the retailing of Morrisseau art, even though he claims they know they are forgeries.
Paul Robinson is working hard trying to earn his father’s mantle as Principal Morrisseau Dealer.
Gabor Vadas, who had been Norval’s companion since they met and lived on the streets of Vancouver, is widely regarded as the “Puppetmaster” who controlled the badly deteriorating Morrisseau, kept him away from the courts, away from the TV cameras, and away from his family. When Norval died, he ended up with everything…millions and millions of dollars worth of paintings.
The documentary record testifies that he was strongly supported in these self-declared beliefs by fellow Morrisseau Forgery Conspiracy Theorists: Paul Robinson, Gabe Vadas, Bryant Ross, Aaron Milrad, Michele Vadas, Mark Anthony Jacobson, and Ritchie Sinclair. To simplify it: basically the Vadas family and their lawyer, the Robinson family, and its two “enforcers.”
Aaron Milrad, the “Dumb Indian’s” lawyer…
Note: Absolutely, importantly, I am leaving Norval Morrisseau out of the Conspiracy Theory entirely. Unlike every other charter member of the art cartel involved in promoting the Theory on websites, blogs, court testimony, and media interviews – who are all exclusively white men hovering around his wheelchair – there is not a single solitary video clip, television interview, or audio tape of any kind, on this planet or any other, in this world or the next, of Norval Morrisseau himself, talking about forgeries or forgers of any kind. So I cannot count Norval as a member of the Conspiracy Theory group unless one can include for membership, one “Dumb Indian.”
Bryant Ross, whose house at Aldergrove was the spiritual home of the Conspiracy Theorists.
That “Dumb Indian” – Stunningly – but absolutely – the only proof of any kind that the Conspiracy Theorists have ever produced, in over 13 years, to support their view that there is a Conspiracy of thousands of forgeries, by umpteen forgers, “out there,” rests entirely, and only, on the say-so of this man…
And guess who all these white guys around Norval’s wheelchair use as their sole supporting source for the entire Theory? The answer: why the guy in the wheelchair, one “Dumb Indian…,” you know, as cover, or the escape hatch, when the “Lance
Confession” comes – as it ultimately will – down the road…
White men have done this with Indians since time began. Why do you think it has changed in the 21st century?
Using their legal association with Norval Morrisseau, an artist in spectacular physical and mental free-fall, as a club against their main business competitors – some 40 art galleries across Canada – the Conspiracy Theorists around Norval’s wheelchair, have sought to root out all BDPs – thousands of them – from the public record, by denouncing them all, as forgeries.
The Don and Ritchie tag-team, posing with Conspiracy Theory Proxy #4, Margaret Hatfield, who thanks to her friendship with these two men would waste some thirty or forty thousand dollars of her paltry pension chasing a forgery theory for which no one has ever demonstrated any independently verifiable proof…
Donald Robinson told Deputy Judge Paul Martial, overseeing Hatfield v Child, that in the last few years he has been totally dedicated to researching all of the thousands of alleged fake BDPs and rooting them out. A business associate of his, and an acolyte, Ritchie Sinclair – who is challenging him for the title of Principal Morrisseau Conspiracy Theorist – has posted over a thousand of these BDPs on a malicious and defamatory website.
Clearly, by repeatedly showing up as a duo in court cases – as the “Don and Ritchie Show” – they have nailed their flag to the mast, with their self-serving court appearances, web sites, blog sites, and “Expert Reports.”
More than any other Canadian forensic scientist, Kenneth J Davies, has the Conspiracy Theorists on the run. Every BDP they have denounced as a forgery, and sent to him for evaluation, has come back as signed by Morrisseau himself, with DNA certainty. Without a single negative finding, though he has passed on a few, but only because the signature was to faded or indistinct for him – the consummate scientist – to hazard a guess, you know like the Conspiracy Theorists are famous for doing…
- They persist even though their claims have been completely discredited by some 70 academic scientific forensic reports saying with DNA certainty that their charges are ludicrous, their reports worthless, and their claims of hundreds of forgeries, as wrong as wrong can be.
These scores of forensic findings, by three of Canada’s top forensic document examiners and handwriting analysis experts, have proven, with DNA certainty, that some 70 paintings that the leading Conspiracy Theorists, Robinson and Sinclair, call forgeries, in actual fact are not, but bear genuine signatures of Norval Morrisseau, and could not have been signed by anyone else. Without a single dissenting finding.
I believe that Sinclair and Robinson have one ultimate destiny – the laughing stock of history, elbowing into that special place reserved for Holocaust Deniers, and those who loudly claim: that the world is flat; that Lance never doped; that “little green men came out of a space ship and got me pregnant, Dad!”
It is their right in a country which allows free speech.
But it doesn’t mean the rest of us have to take seriously anything they say… at all…
Their “Right” to Engage in Art Terrorism – appended to the right of free speech, no matter… especially if it is wildly ludicrous – is coupled a codicil to protect everyone else in a “free will” society: spout what you will, but, “You do not have – you never have – the Right to be Believed.”
- More importantly, by extension, you do not have the right to force your beliefs down anyone else’s throat, no matter how self-righteous you are, or how loudly you scream, or in an attempt to prevent others from dissenting with you, as they exercise their own freedom of speech on facts and issues which you have propelled into the public arena for debate…
You cannot threaten people who dissent with the Conspiracy Theory, with physical force, which has been done by Conspiracy Theorists…
You cannot threaten to put people who dissent with the Conspiracy Theory, into “a meat grinder” like in “Fargo” as has been done by Conspiracy Theorists…
You cannot threaten people who dissent with the Conspiracy Theory, with SLAPP suits, which has been done by Conspiracy Theorists…
Michele Vadas manned the phone to advance the cause of the Conspiracy Theorists…
That Conspiracy Theorists engage in all these diabolical and anti-democratic tactics is hugely compromising evidence that they are hurting, big time, in trying to maintain a completely ridiculous and clearly bankrupt Theory against basic common sense, and the huge onslaught of scores of independent Canadian scientific findings.
1 – The Damning Hatfield Disclosures 2012 – The Hatfield v Child court case has given the Canadian public a wonderful insight into exactly how the members of the cartel operate together to try to pressure a leading, and highly reputable business competitor, Artworld of Sherway, whom they accused of knowingly engaging in a “conspiracy” to sell scores of BDP forgeries, into bowing to their will.
I heard it all – in the public gallery of a court case that went on for five long days, over a two year period – and the court transcripts confirm, the dates, times, and specifics, of all the ways the members of the group worked together against Artworld of Sherway, including the use of:
Mr. Smith AKD Principal Morrisseau Dealer AKA Principal Conspiracy Theorist AKA Donald Robinson. No matter which disguise he uses, no one in Canadian art history has ever before, so aggressively sought out the media spotlight for himself, by setting out to deliberately place himself, and his Conspiracy Theory about supposed Morrisseau forgeries, at the centre of a public discussion from one end of the country to the other. One can only wonder, why a person would support a Conspiracy Theory that is universally discredited by the scientific community, and put at obvious risk his entire credibility as a Morrisseau authenticator of any level.
– intimidating SLAPP lawsuit by a gullible proxy – little old lady Hatfield
– preparatory corporate espionage and surveillance – by “Mr. Smith” AKA Donald Robinson
– fabricating Expert Reports – Donald Robinson
– intimidating phone calls – Michele Vadas
– intimidating fax – Aaron Milrad
– intimidating letter– Aaron Milrad
– intimidating email – Aaron Milrad
– intimidating Affidavits of Forgery – Gabor Vadas, Norval Morrisseau
– defamatory media advisory – Clark R Purves
– intimidating affidavit – Michele Vadas
– malicious defamation on website – Ritchie Sinclair
– intimidating blogs – Ritchie Sinclair & Principal Morrisseau Dealer
- Members of this small group are documented in the public record, and in court transcripts, as using numerous of the same variety of threatening tactics against other art galleries, auction houses, book launches, etc., warning people to remove BDPs from their sales lists, from the walls of their showrooms, from their auction listings, and to “burn” books that dared to use them as illustrations of Norval’s art.
If you think this is Chicago in the 1920s, you would be wrong.
This is all stuff going on in the Canadian art scene in the 21st century, in “Toronto the Good.”
Or as Jack Pollock observed, in his “Dear M” memoir of confessions to his psychiatrist in the 1980s, all part and parcel of “what the art world is like: scheming, manipulative, and, quite often, downright fraudulent.”
So, faced with all these multi-level threats, from Conspiracy Theorists, do people knuckle under?
2 – The “Heffel Fine Art” Fiasco 2006
David Heffel quickly panicked when he was threatened by a Conspiracy Theorist, and unceremonioulsy dumped several genuine Morrisseau paintings from his Fine Art Auction. He had no choice, since obviously, he couldn’t tell the difference between a real one and a fake.
Well, after receiving such threats, Heffel of Vanvouver, BC, quickly delisted several genuine Morrisseau paintings owned by Joseph Otavnik, at the very last second, from their fine art auction. Otavnik, brandishing a forensic report proving his paintings as authentic, exposed the Hoax of the Gabe Vadas (and Morrisseau?) claim that his paintings were forgeries, and won a large financial pay-off from them.
They begged him to settle out of court, they were so afraid of going before a judge knowing they didn’t have a scintilla of believable proof. (Including an artist in such physical and mental decline that he was totally incapable of giving credible testimony on anything before an independent judge – besides no longer being able to paint anything worth looking at…)
One painting Heffel delisted, “Spirits 2b,” which was later proven, with DNA certainty, to have beeen authentically signed by Norval Morrisseau, by forensic scientist Brian Lindblom was responsible for forcing Norval Morrisseau and his business manager – the same two who had cowed Heffel into dumping the paintings – to settle out of court and pay the owner $11,000 in compensation, rather than face a judge, knowing he’d be tougher to fool than the Heffels.
Heffel also delisted “Grandfather Speaks of Great Ansistral Warrior 1977” which was later proven, with DNA certainty, to have been authentically signed by Norval Morrisseau, by forensic scientist Kenneth J Davies.
Forensics by top Canadian scientists proved that Heffel, reacting precipitously out of fear, had irresponsibly dumped several genuine Morrisseaus from their auction listings, and hugely tarnished these genuine Canadian heritage treasures in the market place by doing so.
“Nature as One” a genuine Morrisseau badly damaged by being unceremoniously dumped by Joyners.
3 – “Joyner Canadian Fine Art” Fiasco 2011 – I believe as a result of receiving similar threats, Joyner Canadian Fine Art of Toronto), after having, for months, posted the Morrisseau’s BDP “Nature as One,” for sale, suddenly delisted it, literally at the “very last second” from its fine art auction.
The Bad and the Beautiful – Part 1 – The painting had been in the possession of their fine art expert, Lydia Abbott, for months, pictorially posted in their catalogue, and I had examined it on the last day of preview, still up for sale, two days before the auction.
The Bad & the Beautiful – Hey, so what if Joyner’s Art Expert, Lydia Abbott, had the painting for months of examination, and then only dumped it with seconds to go… When you’re this drop dead beautiful, we’ll overlook her dissing a Great Canadian Heritage Treasure – a genuine Morrisseau painting – this time…
The auctioneer started the sale, with the sudden announcement that Morrisseau’s “Nature as One” had been delisted. Someone had obviously received a last minute, threatening “midnight phone call,” attacking this typical Norval Morrisseau 1970s BDP as a fake, and demanding they remove it from their listing.
Staff gossip said it was a fake. The owner of the painting, whom I was able to discover, said she was not informed of the Joyner decision, was shocked and has been unable to sell the painting, at any price, since it was “defamed as a fake” by Joyner’s precipitous delisting.
Joyner’s has not been able to produce any evidence whatsoever that it is a fake, nor has it revealed who exactly maligned the painting. Take your pick of the Conspiracy Theorists.
Which, of course, leaves only one culprit, for defaming a genuine Morrisseau painting, and damaging Canada’s artistic heritage – Joyner’s.
Geoffrey Joyner failed to take a stand on principle and knowledge, and just gave in to empty and unjustifiable threats. Since he is not “drop-dead beautiful” like his art expert, his behaviour is not excusable.
I believe – like Heffel – Joyner’s “dumped” a genuine Morrisseau out of fear of repercussions – likely legal threats – from the Conspiracy Theorists.
And exactly like Heffel, rather than making a stand with courage, on knowledge, expertise, and principle, or calling in a forensic scientist, chose to dump a single painting that had no effect on their bottom line. Even if it was a genuine painting by Morrisseau.
Remember, fine art auctions – Heffel, Joyner’s, Bonham, Sotheby’s, Waddington’s – are first and foremost money making operations. They are not there to preserve, protect, or promote the Canadian art heritage. But to profit from it. The two don’t go together as witnessed by the shabby and defamatory treatment many genuine Morrisseaus get at several of the top Canadian fine art auctions.
Pssst: A Trade Secret – Because they sell thousands of paintings by hundreds of artists every year, the fine art auction staff can’t tell if their paintings – any of them – are genuine or fake. It’s not rocket science, Dear Diary. In fact Robert Heffel once told me that when a “supposed” Krieghoff comes in on consignment he used to get Dennis Reid of the Art Gallery of Ontario to come in and authenticate it for them. It’s what one would expect when confronted with the same questions about a Morrisseau, Canada’s top Aboriginal artist; instead they all just “dump” the Indian’s work into their Heritage Trash bin
With exactly the same cavalier disregard as white policemen, who have “dumped” public concerns about some 600 missing young Indian girls into the trash bin. With predictable results: their totally complicit negligence has resulted in letting psychopaths like Pickton and others, to run amok, to terrorize the public, and to murder and kill at will, along BC’s “Highway of Tears.”
It’s all part of Canada’s racist past – and present. Hell, they’re only Indians…
When a single painting threatens their bottom line, out it goes… regardless if it is genuine or fake. And gets hugely tarnished in the market place as a result, with the owner getting nothing… zip… nada… when he or she tries to sell it afterwards… anywhere. Thanks to the infamy being broadcast, for years, on the internet, including by the auction house’s own “Past Auctions” files.
And the ripple effect extends the tarnish to the reputation of its owner or consignor. Completely without justification.
Past Auctions catalogues memorialize “wrong calls” by fine art auction houses, forever. In one sudden delisting, Joyner’s devalued a painting it publicized as worth an estimated $15,000, as being utterly worthless. This official Joyner act of “cultural cleansing” was immediately picked up by Conspiracy Theorist bloggers, who then posted for the world that “Joyner’s delisted it as a fake.” It is my belief that fine art auction houses can’t wash their hands of being complicit in what I consider is a kind of irresponsible cultural genocide. That a bit of courage, a bit of expertise, a bit of principle, and a call to an independent forensic scientist would have been the responsible way to go when confronted with phone threats, etc., from Conspiracy Theorists. They do this with Krieghoff, all the time; but they just “dump” on Morrisseau, a Canadian Indian. Shame…
The picture of “Nature as One,” and its listing, is permanently frozen into the Joyner catalogue, and branded forever, by auction floor scuttlebutt as “suddenly delisted as a fake.” And the infamy will live for years in the murkiest corners of Google storage on the internet.
It’s how Conspiracy Theorists destroy Canadian art heritage, and how compliant, uninformed, uncaring, and unconcerned, fine art auctions, play along and trash Great Canadian Art.
Joyner did not officially call “Nature as One” a forgery. But by treating this authentic Morrisseau as a “leper,” within minutes of the announcement, the feeling spread across the auction floor that Joyner suddenly considered it a “forgery,” resulting in the precipitous delisting. And, with the painting branded for life, the owner would find it virtually impossible to sell anywhere, at any price.
Something I’ve actually confirmed with the owner, who lives in Nova Scotia… So much for investing in First Nations art, anywhere in Canada!
This kind of auction floor chit chat about a “fake” has never accompanied the delisting of countless other paintings that I have witnessed over hundreds of auctions over many years.
4 – Fiasco at the Elmwood Spa Morrisseau Art Exhibition and Book Launch 2010
Elmwood Spa
My wife Joan Goldi and I had been given private access to see a huge Morrisseau art show that had been up on three floors of the Spa, and open to the public, for almost a year, and had been closed for a couple of months. Preparations were underway for a major new Morrisseau book to be launched, a few days later.
Everything looked fine to us. Lots of great Morrisseau paintings, some spectacular ones, including many fine BDPs from the 1970s.
The paintings had apparently been collected over many years, by the owner of the Elmwood Spa, Sherry Brydson, a passionate collector of Canadian fine art, who had clearly spared no expense to get the best paintings that were available. She had been advised in her collecting by Joseph McLeod, still regarded as the top expert on Norval Morrisseau’s art from the 1960s to the 1980s period. He had supplied many of the paintings through his gallery.
Ms. Brydson had family ties to super-wealthy Ken Thomson, himself a Canadian fine art fanatic.
(Note: Many years ago I wrote Thomson, often called Canada’s richest man at the time, saying that his Krieghoff collection was great, but that what his display, then in a small private gallery, needed was a fine educational video to tie the whole thing together. He graciously wrote me a personal letter saying he quite agreed, saluted my interest as a fellow devotee to Canadian art, but said, regretfully, he had no money…)
I looked forward to the book launch, a couple of days ahead. And I wanted that new Morrisseau book…
A few days later, we showed up as invitees to the book launch, and were stunned…
Terror on Elm Street -Incredibly some 20 BDP’s that had been on display, on three different floors, for almost a year, were now all suddenly gone and replaced with other paintings.
Jessica Wilson had never experienced anything like it before…
The Bad and the Beautiful – Part 2 – When we inquired about these stunning developments, the gallery curator, Jessica Wilson, told us that she had received a threatening phone call from Paul Robinson, owner of the Kinsman Robinson Galleries, warning her to dump the paintings he wanted gone, or else.
Paul Robinson, a Principal Conspiracy Theorist, has been reported making intimidating phone calls, in the Elwood Spa incident.
Because of the intimidating phone call, Wilson told us that the Elmwood Spa had quickly removed over a dozen fine Morrisseau BDPs from their walls. And this, in spite of the fact that they had been up for almost a year, and were now only slated to be up on public display for a couple of more days, and only as a backdrop for a one day book launch of a new pictorial volume celebrating paintings from the exhibition.
Yet they removed them. Fear can do that to people…
Mark Anthony Jacobson’s phone call scared Jessica Wilson.
Wilson also told us she had received utterly vile phone threats from Mark Anthony Jacobson – who at the time operated one of the filthiest websites ever to disgrace public discourse in Canada. Astonishingly, Jacobson, an artist himself, has, with his vicious attacks on genuine Morrisseau paintings, helped to depress, hugely, the value of all Canadian Aboriginal art in the market place.
Gabe Vadas, a public school dropout from Powell River, BC, like several of his white colleagues, like Ritchie Sinclair from downtown Toronto, also involved in attacking genuine Canadian Indian art and artists, he loves dressing up in Indian hats and costumes, chanting “Indian” mumbo-jumbo, and performing “Indian” rituals.
With his vile attacks calling genuine Morrisseau art as forged, he has succeeded, big time, in scaring buyers away from buying Indian art of any kind.
On behalf of the Conspiracy Theorists, he attacked anyone who had BDPs or paintings of the type that Kinsman Robinson Galleries wanted gone.
In fact, in sync with all the Indian “mumbo-jumbo” numerous Conspiracy Theorists play around with – Daniel Boone jackets, fur hats, pseudo-Indian names, Indian “adoptions,” Bear Dance hocus pocus, etc., Jacobson – you won’t believe this – bestowed an “Eagle Feather” on Donald Robinson for his work in denouncing as forgeries, thousands of genuine Norval Morrisseau BDPs from the 1970s.
(Rumour has it that, since Jacobson couldn’t find a real eagle feather, he substituted a turkey feather, knowing that Donald Robinson couldn’t tell the difference. Now you know, Dear Diary.)
Wrapped in its sacred bundle, is the sacred turkey feather, bestowed by Mark Anthony Jacobson on Donald Robinson in recognition of his many contributions as the Principal Conspiracy Theorist.
Wilson told us she literally feared for her physical safety, that she had never encountered a vicious attack like that or anything similar.
We were more stunned to hear that, in view of the multi-level extreme threats of dire consequences if they went ahead with the Morrisseau book launch, the Spa suddenly cancelled it as well, only hours before the event.
Donald Robinson, Principal Conspiracy Theorist, and his Kinsman Robinson Galleries Associate Director John MacGregor Newman, in warm embrace with kingpin enforcer of the Conspiracy Theorists, Mark Anthony Jacobson. It is not known if this photo was made before he made the threatening phone call to Jessica Wilson, or after… Jacobson a very recent convert to the group ran the vilest website we’ve ever encountered on the Canadian internet, featuring ALL the worst words in the dictionary, and many which are not, targeted at people like Ugo Matulic, who spent thousands of dollars to have key paintings evaluated by Canada’s top forensic scientists. Observers in the Canadian fine art community, just shake their heads, and wonder, how can a man like Robinson, who has long headed one of the leading art galleries in Canada, consort happily with the two most discredited website bloggers – Jacobson and Sinclair – in Canadian history? He has frequently hosted their posts on his KRG blog site and multiple times inside his gallery, where many say they get their orders, if not their pay cheques. PS – We stand corrected, Jacobson’s website is the second vilest in Canadian history, edged out – just slightly – by that run by the Montreal dismemberment murderer. And just beating out that operated by Ritchie Sinclair.
The speeches would be made, celebrating Norval, but the Brydson book that was to be unveiled and sold, was kept under lock and key and not even available for viewing.
Before the hugely watered-down event began, we noticed that a leading Conspiracy Theorist “enforcer” Ritchie Sinclair, and his roommate/assistant Garth Cole (a Supervising City of Toronto Information Officer), were walking around and clearly checking to see if the banned paintings had all been properly removed as “ordered.”
Sinclair, who regards himself as the chief enforcer for the Conspiracy Theorists, in fact, featured the Brydson book on his malicious and defamatory website as being full of forgeries.
The Bad and the Beautiful – Part 3
The attractive Joan Goldi didn’t arouse the slightest interest in Ritchie Sinclair when she followed him closely on his “enforcement” tour for the Conspiracy Theorists…
Ritchie Sinclair and his roommate Garth Cole, seemed totally oblivious to the fact that they were being followed by a beautiful woman on three floors of the Elmwood Spa…
My wife followed Sinclair and Cole (they did not know who we were) from floor to floor, as they checked to make sure the “orders” had been followed to the letter, or, we surmised, if they would have to take further action to force compliance…
This was easier than you may think since Sinclair was wearing his customary “Daniel Boone” hunting costume which he wears during his “enforcement” outings. We presume he wears it in honour of the legendary Indian fighter, whose exploits he seeks to emulate, with his numerous public attacks on some of Canada’s top Indian artists as being lowlife forgers.
Ritchie Sinclair, resplendent in his “Daniel Boone”** costume, on one of his many visits to the Kinsman Robinson Galleries, instructing the staff in how to spot a fake… Watching with rapt attention are key Conspiracy Theorists, Paul Robinson l, and John MacGregor Newman… Donald Robinson was not present, we presume, because, well frankly, he wanted to forget this embarrassing chapter in his life as a publisher, and a Morrisseau authenticator… (** Daniel Boone was another legendary Indian Fighter. Numerous photos exist showing that Sinclair has an obsession with putting on a variety of these costumes, in which he dresses up to appear in public. But we must discount – we cannot confirm – the rumours that among them is a “French maid’s outfit,” which he supposedly wears on more private occasions.)
The two Conspiracy Theorist “enforcers” working the Elmwood Spa Case were Mark Anthony Jacobson LEFT (vile website & phone calls) and Ritchie Sinclair (surveillance and compliance policing). Both also claim to be artists, in their other lives…
Their surveillance and enforcement activities completed, the enforcer and his assistant did not even bother to stay for any of the official celebrations to begin, or to hear the speeches from the Gallery owner, and the expert’s (Barry Ace) insightful talk about Norval Morrisseau.
I watched the “Theorist” duo exit the building, smilingly, as they went off to report “Mission Accomplished.” I understood; enforcers are not really intellectuals; their skills lie in other areas.
This is all serious stuff for a lot of businessmen and women in the Canadian fine art market.
82 year old Joe McLeod, for decades considered the leading authority on Norval Morrisseau art, has been the special target for the Conspiracy Theorists, who have used Proxies to attack him in court, and “enforcers” to physically intimidate him on the street, by his car, and at his home and place of business.
Joe McLeod was really the target of this corporate aggression; he has long been a target of Kinsman Robinson Galleries, accused by Donald Robinson and Ritchie Sinclair of knowingly selling forgeries.
Ritchie Sinclair, a website blogger, and a passionate Conspiracy Theorist, had previously physically threatened Joseph McLeod, the main business competitor of Kinsman Robinson Galleries, on so many occasions, that the police finally arrested him, and charged him with Criminal Harassment. (The police document proving all this is on the web.)
In 2010, Ms. Hatfield testified in her court case exactly what she had been told, in private – ooops! – about Joe McLeod by Ritchie Sinclair, a long-time acolyte, and business associate of the Kinsman Robinson Galleries.
When she was asked if the had contacted McLeod, the Morrisseau expert who had signed her Certificate of Appraisal for a painting she bought, she snarked:
In spite of being affectionately called “Maggie” by Conspiracy enforcer, Ritchie Sinclair – and whom I watched, only seven feet in front of me, plant a huge kiss on the top of her head – I have watched Ms. Hatfield, up close over two years, show physical and mental signs of being nothing, if not devastated, to have lost some $30,000 to $40,000 in legal fees after being encouraged to act as a proxy by the Conspiracy Theorists.
“I had found out from Mr. Sinclair that Mr. McLeod was involved in the forgery as well as in their distribution. I certainly did not contact him.” (Court Transcripts: May 31, 2011 p 32)
The accusation was outrageous, of course, but it disclosed to all Canadians who the target of the Conspiracy Theorists was, and who the shooters were, and how they operated behind the scenes with gullible proxies to advance their cause.
Dr. Jonathan Browne, an expert on dung beetles, but AKA CT Proxy #3, aided and abetted cultural genocide against the art heritage of Canada’s First Nations. He passed a little old lady school teacher straight into the arms of the Conspiracy Theorists. The experience has set her back some 40,000 in legal fees.
But don’t feel too bad for a retired “little old lady school teacher.” She and another beginning art collector, Dr. Jonathan Browne – who should have smelled a rat long ago; hell, he’s an authority on the dung beetle – have been gullible converts to the Conspiracy Theory for several years, even coming from hundreds of miles away to act as support observers in Otavnik v Sinclair in 2010. All without proof of any kind – in fact, against the scientific reports of Canada’s top forensic experts – just to show common cause with the losing side, the Conspiracy Theorists.
They have both, been willing proxies helping to commit cultural genocide against the art of Canada’s First Nations artists.
David Silcox – “The threats and all…”
By the way, the situation is so bad, and the tactics of the Conspiracy Theorists so effective, that David Silcox, normally the last word in gracious and composed behaviour, at Sotheby’s of Canada, expressed his annoyance to me about it all.
He said Sotheby’s was actually thinking of not accepting Morrisseaus on consignment anymore for their fine art auctions.
Confessed Silcox:“It’s just not worth the trouble. With the threats and all.”
Calling James Stevens… 2011
It’s in this atmosphere that word leaked out that Stevens was starting to assemble the pictures for his book.
Great Canadian Cultural Hero James Stevens I believe has cast in stone, the sleeper evidence, on multiple levels, that will ultimately put a conclusive end to the most sordid period in Canadian art history. More on this to come…
So, I surmise, a Conspiracy Theory “enforcer” contacts James Stevens…
It’s pure conjecture on my part, with the only evidence, knowledge of what has been going on with other people in the Morrisseau art business community. It seems as good an explanation as any, for the totally lopsided pictorial display in his book, and the huge hole in Norval’s BDP period, which has for the past decade been the special target of the Conspiracy Theorists, with website defamations, emails, phone calls, letters, Affidavits, espionage visits, physical attacks, and meat grinder threats.
So the fact is that the Stevens book would not be the first book to be ordered “burned” by members of the art cartel.
It is absolutely clear to me – without fear of the slightest contradiction – that James Stevens was contacted by a Conspiracy Theorist “enforcer” or his lawyer, threatening him with a SLAPP suit, or worse, if he published any of the forbidden BDPs that the cartel had denounced as forgeries.
James, I believe, got scared, big time, and was brow-beaten into doing Norval Morrisseau a huge disservice, by omitting the powerful BDP paintings from his high period because of threats.
Clearly reeling from the “enforcer” threats James wiped out Norval’s powerful late 70s period from his book.
He made up for the huge hole in his catalogue raisonné by spiking in a huge number of extra 60s stuff, which the cartel members didn’t object to. They weren’t BDPs. But it way over represented the period in Norval’s art history.
And, I believe, to express his pique with the cartel, and their strong arm tactics against him, James just expunged all the paintings they were offering for sale, namely those they claimed Norval painted after 1989, when he came under control of an all-white business management. This group would be the initiators of the Conspiracy Theory of thousands of forgeries by umpteen forgers, and find it an effective tool to destroy their business competitors in the secondary market of selling Morrisseau paintings.
Donald Robinson claims the 1990s – when he was the Principal Morrisseau Dealer selling direct-from-the-artist paintings – was one of the most productive and successful of Norval’s entire career, and that he was a vigorous painter till 2001, even though, those who disagree are legion, and say Robinson’s bumph is just the expected hype from a motivated seller – the Principal Morrisseau Dealer.
Why is this period, then, also hugely, and suspiciously, missing in Stevens’ book?
The green Stevens Graph charts the destructive path of the Conspiracy Theorists across Norval’s most prolific period.
Well, I believe Stevens was warned by the Conspiracy Theorists not to publish BDPs from the 70s, with which he complied. But clearly PO’d big time by their high-handed tactics, and exercising his own freedom of action, he just refused to publish the stuff they were selling, and thus, in effect, refusing to acknowledge that they were genuine Morrisseaus, from the entire 18 year period after they took control of his affairs…
Was the pressure of the Conspiracy Theorists winning points on James, in spite of himself?
I believe so. James is an expert on the life of Norval Morrisseau, not the art of the artist. He is an informed amateur not a recognized “Appraisal granting” expert.
Sorry James – James is not a journalist; James is certainly not, an investigative journalist. Nor is he, unlike me, a trained and longtime practicing professional historian.
His strength is in collating, in gathering, in compiling information. He has no skills, in professional art assessment, historical document examination, handwriting analysis, or evidence processing.
When he departs from his proven and valuable skill set, and starts to do analytical history, in his ending chapter on fakes, he awfully tarnishes the book, for the Ages. It is mindlessly, unverified, gossip masquerading as truth, that is merely recycled publicity hand-outs from Conspiracy Theorist propaganda.
James makes bald statements about fakes as if they were true, without offering any independently verifiable evidence to support his allegations.
So he knuckled under, more than a bit, to the huge media attack by Conspiracy Theorists.
It gets worse; and here’s the proof:
The Bad and the Beautiful – Part 4
Norval Morrisseau and Josie Schywiola who bought the painting behind them.
Why writers with no formal university degrees in history, or investigative journalism write at their peril…
James published one picture with a caption alleging it as a possible fake. He used as his authority Blake Debassige, carefully adding “Dr.” in front of it, to try to give more weight to his forgery argument.
Which is irrelevant, to begin with, since Debassige is not a “Doctor” of expertise on Morrisseau, but in his own art. It’s a common attribution mistake that amateur writers often make, when trying to add punch to something when they lack real evidence.
Clearly Stevens should not have used Debassige, nor his doctorate, as proof of possible Morrisseau frauds in his book.
Ugo Matulic whose public-spirited generosity in paying for dozens of independent forensic analyses of alleged “forgeries” has panicked the Conspiracy Theorists big time. In 2010 Kinsman Robinson Galleries of Toronto, launched a SLAPP suit against him in Ontario Superior Court to try to shut him up and stop his public-spirited investigation into alleged frauds in the Morrisseau art market. Every single “forgery” KRG has alleged has been ruled “authentic” by findings from top Canadian forensic experts whom Matulic has commissioned to do an analysis. It’s a scandal of mega proportions. In 12 years of making allegations about thousands of forgeries, and umpteen conniving forgers, KRG or the Robinsons have never taken a single painting, person, or company to court, or to the police. But they issue a SLAPP suit to shut up an investigative journalist, who has the world’s biggest archive of compromising Morrisseau files to back up his allegations in any court, in this world or the next. Why would they seek to “Shoot the Messenger,” instead of taking a forger to court?
Alas, in doing so, both Stevens and Debassige have exposed themselves as utter dunces in the Morrisseau authentication department.
On Dec. 19, 2011, thanks to the far-sighted efforts, and public-spirited passion of Ugo Matulic, who traced down the ownership of this painting, “Arrangement of Underworld Spirits 1980,” and using his own money, had the signature evaluated by top Canadian forensic document examiner and handwriting analysis expert, Kenneth J Davies. Davies certified, with DNA certainty, that the painting was an authentic work, signed by Norval Morrisseau, and by no one else.
This finding gives a resounding vote of confidence to the judgment of Joe McLeod of Maslak McLeod, who had appraised the painting previously, as a genuine Morrisseau, and just another of the many fallacious appraisals of Morrisseau works assessed by Donald Robinson and Kinsman Robinson Galleries.
Blake Debassige made a bad call, or did he? Just like Norval had a mostly “hate” relationship with other artists, who, he said, were just copying his style of painting, so they resented the high profile attention he got in galleries and the media. Promoting so-called Norval “fakes” is one way to level the playing field.
So both James and Debassige were utterly wrong about the authenticity of the only alleged example of a forgery Stevens published in his book.
This is hugely devastating to Donald and Paul Robinson and their tribe of Conspiracy Theorists who have claimed that there are over four thousand forgeries “out there,” and that they are so easy to tell that even an amateur could pick them out – meaning you dear reader.
In fact I have heard KRG Associate Director John MacGregor Newman tell a client that he “can spot the fakes instantly, a hundred yards away.”
So, given the huge supply of alleged fakes available, and the utter ease of being able to identify them, how can Stevens – who is hardly an amateur, and has seen more than his fair share of Morrisseaus in his life – pick only one, and it turns out to be an authentic Morrisseau, proven with DNA certainly, by one of Canada’s top forensic document examiners?
One out of 4,000 forgeries, to chose from, and James picks the authentic one? You couldn’t write this in a movie script without being laughed off the job…
Thanks James, again, for inadvertently showing what an utter Hoax the whole Conspiracy Theory of Morrisseau forgeries is.
Will James send us high res photos of the back of this painting for forensic analysis…?
Sorry James #2 – We lied…
James actually did publish one picture dated 1977, that we did not plot on the Stevens Graph. For a good reason.
James did not use it to illustrate the body of his story on the life of Morrisseau. He used it at the end of the book, in an addendum chapter where he wrote his unscholarly and unsubstantiated analysis of forgeries. The painting is a classic BDP he got from a Private Collection. Together with “Arrangement of Underworld Spirits,” they are his only proof of forgeries.
Challenging James – I am certain the back of the painting has BDP signatures and titling. If James had high resolution images of the signature sent to an independent handwriting expert, I have not the slightest doubt that the verification would come back as “an authentic signature by Norval Morrisseau and by no one else.” I challenge James to pay to have that done, or to send us the photos so we can have it done…
Do it for Norval, for Canada’s National Art Heritage.
And then issue a public retraction, for his allegations about the paintings, and the chapter…
Still the 81 other dated pictures Stevens published stand for something.
Was that another subliminal message by Stevens…?
James Stevens, without knowing it – at least he said nothing about it in public – by publishing the pictures he supposedly chose – actually I believe it is more accurate to say, were chosen for him – said something powerful, for the Ages, about the damage created by the Conspiracy Theorists of thousands of supposed fakes by numerous forgers out there, and the actions of its enforcers.
- Inadvertently, the Stevens Graph shows the enormous damage this group and its wrong-headed Conspiracy, has caused to the artistic heritage of Norval Morrisseau and to collections of countless hundreds of Morrisseau art lovers around the world.
The overwhelming number of Canadians are asking: have the genuine Morrisseau paintings from Norval’s 1970s BDP period, been targeted for defamation, all along, since Donald Robinson introduced his Conspiracy Theory to the world on May 18, 2001?
In short, what the Stevens Graphs shows is not, that the supposed forgeries are the primary victims of the Conspiracy Theorist campaign manipulations, but that the primary victims are the genuine paintings of Norval Morrisseau from the period when he created his fabulous BDPs during the 1970s.
Collateral damage of CT attacks are also the hundreds of dealers and collectors who, believing in Norval as an artist, bought and invested in his paintings. Their loyalty to Norval has lost them millions of dollars in valuations, as the spurious attacks by Conspiracy Theorist Extremists has contaminated the market for Canada’s top Aboriginal Artist, and many of his fellow Aboriginal artists.
And that, say knowledgeable Morrisseau collectors, is exactly whom the Conspiracy Theorists were intending to target all along. Nailing the thousands of genuine Morrisseaus from his 1970s high period that were in the hands of their main business competitors, and had been making it hard to sell their wobbly 1990s stuff from Morrisseau from his “Invalid Period” of painting.
the Morrisseau Hoax Exposed 