Native Artist Alex Janvier
Member of the Indian Group of Seven
Ojibwa artist Alex Janvier was a founding member of the Indian Group of Seven, an association of native artists of the Woodland School.
Native artist Alex Janvier was a founding member of the Indian Group of Seven, an association of native artists of the Eastern Woodlands School that organized the Indian Professional Artists Inc. in Winnipeg in the 1970's.
Janvier was born in 1935 to one of the last hereditary chiefs of the Dene on Le Goff Reserve in Alberta. Unlike most Indian artists of that era he received a formal art education. He graduated from the four year program at the Alberta College of Art in Calgary and went on to instruct for a time at the University of Alberta's Department of Education.
Janvier's style is generally linear, abstract and non-representational, but this image (available at the Red Kettle Gallery) was an earlier work.
From 1961 to 1977 Janvier, like Eddy Cobiness, made a political statement by signing paintings with his trreaty number
Eddy died in 1996.
Selected collections
- Canada Council Art Bank, Ottawa ON
- Canadian Museum of Civilization, Hull, PQ
- Cinader Collection, Toronto ON
- Indian and Northern Affairs Canda, Ottawa ON
- Edmonton Public School Board, Edmonton AB
- Esso Emerging Artists Collection, Calgary AB
- Lester B Pearson Collection, Ottawa ON
- McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinberg ON
- Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon SK
