Born 1931 on Sandy Lake Reserve in northwestern Ontario, Norval Morrisseau almost died of illness as a small boy. His mother took him to a Medicine Woman who gave him the powerful Ojibway name Copper Thunderbird to give him strength. Many elders in the tribe were outraged that such a young man was given such a powerful name. He beat the fever and grew up to become a World Class painter. He now signs all his work using his native name Copper Thunderbird using Cree syllabics taught to him by his Cree wife. Norval Morrisseau is an Ojibway Shaman who paints the images that come to him in dreams. He was introduced to Toronto art gallery owner Jack Pollock while while Pollock was traveling through Northern Ontario in 1962. Pollock took him to Toronto where Morrisseau's first one man show sold out on the first day. His work now hangs in major galleries around the world. He is a world class artist and is considered the founder of a unique style of native art.

Norval Morrisseau is considered the Grandfather of the Woodlands Style and the most popular of what has been dubbed "Canada's Native Group of Seven." 

A member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts since 1970, Norval Morrisseau was the celebrated founder of the Woodland School, which revitalized Anishnabe iconography, traditionally incised on rocks and Midewiwin birchbark scrolls. A self-taught painter, printmaker, and illustrator, Morrisseau created an innovative vocabulary which was initially criticized in the Native community for its disclosure of traditional spiritual knowledge. His colourful, figurative images delineated with heavy black formlines and x-ray articulations, were characteristically signed with the syllabic spelling of Copper Thunderbird, the name Morrisseau's grandfather gave him. Morrisseau completed many commissions during his career, including the mural for the Indians of Canada Pavilion at Expo '67. He was presented with the Order of Canada in 1978, and in 1980 honourary doctorates from McGill and McMaster Universities. In 1995, Morrisseau was honoured by the Assembly of First Nations.