On Thursday, June 6, David Voss pleaded guilty to creating 1,500 fake Norval Morrisseau artworks described as "the biggest art fraud in world history."
Voss pleaded guilty to one charge of forgery and one charge of uttering forged documents related to the fake provenance materials he used from 1996 until 2019 to run an art fraud network.
According to a statement of facts in Ontario Superior Court in Thunder Bay, Voss oversaw an assembly line that produced Morrisseau forgeries by using a paint-by-numbers technique to create paintings that he falsely represented as original works by the well-known Anishinaabe artist.
Voss is one of the eight people who will face charges related to the forgery ring in March 2023 after an investigation conducted by the Thunder Bay police and the Ontario Provincial Police.
Morrisseau, who started the Woodlands School painting movement and passed away in 2007, combined figurative elements, elaborate abstraction, and Indigenous symbolism in her vibrantly colored compositions. He was a member of the Ojibway Bingwi Neyaashi Anishinaabek First Nation.
The court documents showed that Voss drew pencil outlines of compositions like those by Morrisseau and then used acronyms, such as "B" for blue, "G" for green, "LR" for light red, and so on, to tell his accomplices which parts needed to be painted in which colors. Hidden beneath the paint, these carbon sketches led Canadian Conservation Institute forensic experts to identify dozens of fake Morrisseau paintings.
Voss sold between 1,500 and 2,000 pieces for an average price of $1,200 to $7,000, while some went for much more through several middlemen, including two Ontario auction houses. Investigators have taken about 500 of the Voss ring's fake Morrisseau paintings so far, which indicates that over a thousand more fakes may still be on the market.
He explained that he was selling pieces of Morrisseau's art that he claimed were from the 1970s and had purportedly come into his possession from his father, a guard at a jail in Kenora, Ontario.
According to the statement in court this week, Voss's father never worked as a jail guard in Kenora. He also never received original Morrisseau paintings.
Furthermore, it has been confirmed that Voss has never met, acquired artwork from, or interacted with Morrisseau.
