Another Member of Fraudulent Art Ring Creating Fake Norval Morrisseau Paintings Pleads Guilty
The investigation, described as Canada’s largest art fraud case, is steadily progressing through the court system. Another individual has pleaded guilty to fraud charges in Thunder Bay, Ontario.
On Tuesday, David Voss admitted guilt to counts of forgery and uttering forged documents for running an art fraud operation out of Thunder Bay from 1996 to 2019. According to an agreed statement of facts read in court, Voss oversaw the production of thousands of counterfeit artworks falsely attributed to Anishinaabe artist Norval Morrisseau.
Investigators have identified over 1,500 forgeries connected to the Voss ring and have seized nearly 500 of them.
In March 2023, investigators from the Thunder Bay Police Service and the Ontario Provincial Police charged eight individuals in connection with the creation and sale of art falsely attributed to Morrisseau.
Norval Morrisseau, who passed away in 2007 at the age of 75, was a prominent artist from the Ojibway Bingwi Neyaashi Anishinaabek First Nation in northwestern Ontario. He is renowned as the founder of the Woodlands School of art, with his work exhibited in galleries across Canada, including Rideau Hall in Ottawa.
The agreed statement of facts revealed that Voss developed an assembly-line process for the forgery operation, enlisting multiple painters. Voss would sketch an outline in pencil and indicate areas to be colored using letter codes corresponding to different hues.
“David Voss has never met, acquired artwork from or otherwise interacted with, Norval Morrisseau,” “The painters were paid to apply the paint in accordance with this ‘paint by numbers’ process,” said the statement.
The pencil outlines were later pivotal in allowing forensic analysts to determine that Voss’s forgeries were not authentic Morrisseau artworks.
According to the statement of facts, the Canadian Conservation Institute (CCI) compared the suspected forgeries with paintings definitively attributed to Morrisseau. Using digital infrared photography, analysts discovered carbon underdrawings consistent with graphite pencil in the suspected fakes.
“Significantly, 26 out of the 30 questioned paintings revealed underdrawings that included letter codes corresponding to the color of the paint applied on top. These codes appeared to guide the selection of colors for specific areas,” the statement explained.
None of Morrisseau’s authentic paintings featured these kinds of markings, the statement noted.
Voss also had the paintings signed with Morrisseau’s name or initials.
He falsely claimed that most of the forgeries were created in the 1970s, often aging the canvases by sanding them or applying carbon paper to give them an older appearance, the statement added.
Justice Bonnie Warkentin praised Voss for his cooperation with the Crown to achieve a “just result.”
Voss is scheduled to return for sentencing at a later date.
