Roy Thomas “Bird and Snake”

“Bird and Snake” by Roy Thomas (1949 – 2004)

Original Acrylic painting on paper,

16 x 14 inches, ( 25 x 22 including framing)

Signed and Dated 1977 on Lower Right

$ 2200.00

Roy Thomas was a prominent and influential Canadian painter, Roy Harvey Thomas was born near Pagwachuan Lake, Ontario, on a trap line, and grew up on the Longlac Reserve (about 160 miles northeast of Thunder Bay) and died in Thunder Bay, Ontario, where he had lived since 1988. He was raised in the traditional way by his grandparents, who taught him how to be Anishnabe, (a good being). It was his grandmother who encouraged him to draw, so to acknowledge her contribution in his life and her continued presence in his mind, he signed a lot of his paintings with a small crow, the name she had given him.

His name is usually mentioned in discussions about Woodland Art and its modern masters. His works are in several museums including the Canadian Museum of History and the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian.

His subjects were from his Ojibwa culture, the animals, birds, fantasy, figures, legends, mythology, humor, social commentary and spirituality. His style is the Woodland School of Art, created by Norval Morrisseau.

Although Roy Thomas Thomas is considered a self taught artist, he was strongly influenced by Norval Morrisseau, who he met when he was only sixteen.. He was an important second generation member of the Woodland School of Art. His work was influenced by the Woodland School pioneers, particularly Norval Morrisseau, but also Daphne Odjig and Carl Ray.

Thomas’s works were included in several important exhibitions, such as “Contemporary Native Art of Canada: The Woodland Indians”, shown at Canada House, London, England and at Aula Luisenschule, Lahr, Germany (1976); “Last Camp, First Song: Indian Art from Royal Ontario Museum,” Thunder Bay National Exhibition Centre and Centre for Indian Art, Thunder Bay, Ontario (1983); “Norval Morrisseau and the Emergence of the Image Makers”, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (1984); “Woodlands: Contemporary Art of the Anishnabe”, Thunder Bay Art Gallery, Thunder Bay, Ontario and touring (1989); “50 years / 50 Artworks”, Tweed Museum of Art, University of Minnesota Duluth (2000); and “Arts of the Woodland Indians”, Dennos Museum Center, Traverse City, Michigan (2009 – 2010).

Thomas was the subject of the retrospective “Vision Circle: The Art of Roy Thomas,” shown at the Thunder Bay Art Gallery and touring in 2012.

Thomas’s works are in the permanent collections of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia (Halifax), Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto), Canadian Museum of History (Gatineau, Quebec), Carleton University Art Gallery (Ottawa, Ontario), Dennos Museum Center (Traverse City, Michigan), Maltwood Museum (University of Victoria, B.C.), McMaster Museum of Art (Hamilton, Ontario), McMichael Canadian Art Collection (Kleinburg, Ontario), Museum of Anthropology (University of British Columbia, Vancouver), Royal Alberta Museum (Edmonton, Alberta), Royal Ontario Museum (Toronto), Simon Fraser University Gallery (Burnaby, B.C.), Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian (Washington, D.C.), Tom Thomson Memorial Art Gallery (Owen Sound, Ontario), Trent University Art Collection (Peterborough, Ontario) and the Tweed Museum of Art (University of Minnesota Duluth).