Benjamin CheeChee

A leading figure in the second generation of Woodland School artists, Chee Chee (1944-1977) declined to follow in the footsteps of Morrisseau, and instead evolved his own highly distinctive style based on delicate lines tracing organic forms, usually birds and animals, with subtle coloration. In this sense, his work has a definite modern feel, comparable to his European contemporaries such as Soulages and Hartung in its formal elegance, while referencing nature and Ojibwe mythology and cosmology.

A self-taught artist, Chee Chee said of his work: “I wanted to be my own man. I wanted to develop a style that was so much my own that anyone looking at a painting by me would say at once, even if the work was unsigned, ‘Now that was done by Benjamin Chee Chee.’”