Paul Kane’s portrait of a young Métis woman with a swan’s-wing fan captures nineteenth-century European ideas of romanticized Indigeneity but not its subject’s real presence.
Self-taught artist Paul Kane (1810–1871) travelled the Canadian Northwest with HBC and left a rich record of Indigenous and settler cultures. Read his biography here.
Paul Kane’s paintings of Indigenous peoples have been interpreted differently by ethnographers, literary critics, and art historians. Discover the significance of his work.
Paul Kane’s paintings of Indigenous peoples have been interpreted differently by ethnographers, literary critics, and art historians. Discover the significance of his work.
Paul Kane’s watercolour study of the Cree chief is significantly different from his later oil portrait: less idealized and more natural, expressive, and individualized.
Paul Kane’s interest was in his subject not technique, but his work left clues about his methods and tools. Read about his romanticized documentary style.
aul Kane initially intended to make his living painting society pendant portraits like this one of a Coburg man fashionably dressed in a black, shawl-collared jacket.
