{"id":224519,"date":"2025-01-26T11:58:13","date_gmt":"2025-01-26T11:58:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/26\/a-hardened-detective-and-an-angry-rock-star-how-a-vast-art-fraud-was-cracked\/"},"modified":"2025-01-26T11:58:13","modified_gmt":"2025-01-26T11:58:13","slug":"a-hardened-detective-and-an-angry-rock-star-how-a-vast-art-fraud-was-cracked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/26\/a-hardened-detective-and-an-angry-rock-star-how-a-vast-art-fraud-was-cracked\/","title":{"rendered":"A Hardened Detective and an Angry Rock Star: How a Vast Art Fraud Was Cracked"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Two art fraud rings in a remote Canadian city produced thousands of paintings sold in galleries as works by Norval Morrisseau, Canada\u2019s most celebrated Indigenous artist.<\/p>\n

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By <\/span>Norimitsu Onishi<\/a><\/p>\n

Photographs by <\/span>Brett Gundlock<\/span><\/p>\n

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Reporting from Thunder Bay, Ontario<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Tim Tait put two and two together when he went to sell some of his paintings to a law firm in downtown Thunder Bay two decades ago. He spotted one of his other works already there \u2014 but with somebody else\u2019s signature on it.<\/p>\n

And not just anybody\u2019s. It read \u201cCopper Thunderbird,\u201d a.k.a. the \u201cPicasso of the North.\u201d Real name Norval Morrisseau<\/a>, Canada\u2019s most famous Indigenous artist whose original style shattered the country\u2019s idea of art and elbowed its way into its most important museum.<\/p>\n

\u201cI called the cops,\u201d said Mr. Tait, a local artist in Thunder Bay, Ontario, who is also Indigenous. \u201cAll they did was laugh at me and ridicule me on the phone.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n