Edmund Morris: Frontier Artist

Nora Robson was a writer living in Montreal.

Edmund Morris was unique in his representation of the Plains Indians: “each portrait depicted distinctive structural differences, a quality which sets his work apart from stylized versions of the North American Indian by, for instance, Paul Kane” (p.9). Until today, only Paul Kane and George Catlin have been praised for their Indian portraiture, but with the publication of this biography, readers will not only become aware of an artist who painted the Indian with realism, but can look forward to visiting the Royal Ontario Museum, where much of the Morris collection is preserved.

Jean S. McGill, by her own admission, had difficulty deciphering the almost illegible script in Morris’s diaries, and perhaps that accounts for the manner in which she has written this biography. The artist was undoubtedly an unusual man and his story ought to grip the reader’s imagination. Unfortunately, McGill has chosen to string the factual information together in a series of somewhat pedantic sentences.

Edmund Morris, born 18 December 1871 in Perth, Ontario, was the sixth and youngest child of the Hon. Alexander Morris and Margaret Clive Morris. The boy spent his early childhood in Fort Garry, where his father held the position of Lieutenant-Governor of Manitoba and the Northwest Territories. Subsequently the family moved to Toronto. Although Morris first studied architecture, he never abandoned his painting. His first art teacher was William Cruikshank, and he later studied in New York and Paris. Among his early artist friends were James Morrice, William Brymner, Edmond Dyonnet, Horatio Walker and Maurice Cullen. He also met Ernest Thompson Seton while studying with Cruikshank.

In 1897, when he became an associate member of the Royal Canadian Academy, he was alternating his painting sites between Toronto and Quebec City. Morris sold his first pen-and-ink sketches of Indian chiefs to Lord Minto and E.B. Osler in 1900, but it was another five years before he was commissioned by the Ontario government to join the James Bay Treaty party to record Indians pictorially. His diaries, begun at age 15, describe the Indians’ diseases and poor living conditions. Throughout the following years, while he continued to record the proud, undaunted Indian leaders for posterity, he became more and more concerned over the shameful treatment they had received from the white man.

In 1907 Morris became one of the founders of the Canadian Art Club. For the rest of his short life, he divided his time between painting the Indians, working to bring their plight before the public, and arranging showings through the Canadian Art Club. On August 21, 1913, Morris’s body was found floating in the St. Lawrence River within sight of Cap Tourmente, the artist’s favourite sketching spot, just off Ile d’Orléans. Although friends mentioned that he was depressed and drinking heavily, his drowning remains a mystery.