Daphne Odjig (Beavon)

“If my work as an artist has somehow helped to open doors between our people and the non-Native community, then I am glad. I am even more deeply pleased if it has helped to encourage the young people that have followed our generation to express their pride in our heritage more openly, more joyfully than I would have ever dared to think possible.” — Daphne Odjig

— quote from “Odjig: The Art of Daphne Odjig, 1960-2000”, essays by Bob Boyer and Carol Podedworny

• Received commissions from Expo ‘70 in Osaka, Japan; the Manitoba Museum of Man and Nature; and the Israeli airline, El Al;
• Awarded a six-month scholarship by Sweden’s Brucebo Foundation in 1973;
• Received an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from Laurentian University in 1982, an Honorary Doctorate of Law from the University of Toronto in 1985, and an Honorary Doctorate of Education from Nipissing University in 1997;
• Served as advisor to the Society of Canadian Artists of Native Ancestry (SCANA) in 1985; in 1993, this organization honoured her as an Elder and presented her with a sacred eagle feather;
• In 1986, she was one of four artists in the world, selected by the curators of the Picasso Museum in Antibes, France, to paint a memorial to Picasso;
• Received the Order of Canada, in 1986, for her artistic and social activism;
• Elected to the Royal Canadian Academy [of Art] in 1989;
• Presented with a National Aboriginal Achievement Award for Arts and Culture in 1998;
• Received a 2007 Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts for her artistic achievement.

— excerpt Library and Archives Canada