Man suing estate of Indigenous artist Norval Morrisseau denies estate’s claims

VANCOUVER — A British Columbia man who is suing the estate of acclaimed Indigenous artist Norval Morrisseau alleging he was sexually assaulted by the painter disputes claims made by the estate in response to the lawsuit.

Mark Anthony Jacobson is seeking $5 million from the estate in general, aggravated and punitive damages, and damages for economic loss, claiming Morrisseau reached into his pants and touched him on the buttocks after Morrisseau’s assistant suggested he could heal Jacobson’s back pain.

In response to lawsuit, the estate said Morrisseau “was in no position to be physically or socially aggressive” at the time of the alleged 2006 assault, that he “had no libido,” was held upright in a wheelchair by straps, and was in the advanced stages of Parkinson’s disease before dying the next year at the age of 75.

None of the claims by either party have been tested in court.

In his latest affidavit filed this week in B.C. Supreme Court, Jacobson claims the CEO of the company associated with the estate, Cory Dingle, was dishonest in his affidavit in reply to the case.

Jacobson says he acknowledges Morrisseau suffered from Parkinson’s disease, but he was “still able to use his arms and hands in 2006, with assistance.”

The estate said in its response to the lawsuit, filed on Sept. 9, that Jacobson had contacted Dingle in 2022 and asked to be promoted as Morrisseau’s “sole spiritual and artistic successor.”

Dingle says in an affidavit that he refused and the next day Jacobson began a “vile and profane text message and internet defamation campaign” against Morrisseau and the estate.

Jacobson says he “categorically denies” that he asked to be appointed as “spiritual successor or gatekeeper of the Woodlands style.”

He also claims he did not launch a defamation campaign, but rather had simply decided to begin “telling the truth publicly.”

“This was truth-telling, not defamation,” he says in the document.

The estate says Jacobson paints in the style of Morrisseau, “and to some extent has also fashioned his artistic persona after Norval Morrisseau, naming himself ‘Rainbow Thunderbird’ after Morriseau’s Anishnaabek name ‘Copper Thunderbird.'”

Jacobson also denied that claim, saying he acknowledges that his painting style is influenced by Morrisseau’s work, but he rejects that he fashioned a persona after him, adding that he developed his own “techniques and refinements.” He also said his spirit name was given to him by an elder in a sacred pipe ceremony in 2005.

“It was not self-chosen and was not in imitation of Noval’s Anishnaabek name,” the affidavit says.

A trailblazer for contemporary Indigenous artists across Canada, Morrisseau received numerous honours, including the Order of Canada.

His distinctive and colourful pictographic style has also been widely forged. At least 6,000 fake Morrisseau paintings have been uncovered, costing his estate $100 million in losses, in a phenomenon that police have called the biggest art fraud in world history.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 26, 2025.