View source for Paul Kane

{{Short description|Canadian painter}}
{{Other uses|Paul Kane (disambiguation)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=November 2013}}
{{Infobox artist
| name = Paul Kane
| image = Kane Selfportrait.jpg
| caption = Self-portrait, {{circa|1845}}
| birth_name = 
| birth_date = September 3, 1810
| birth_place = [[Mallow, County Cork]], [[Republic of Ireland|Ireland]]
| death_date = {{death date and age|1871|2|20|1810|9|3}}
| death_place = [[Toronto]], [[Ontario]], [[Canada]]
| nationality = Irish-Canadian
| spouse      = Harriet Clench (m. 1853) 
| field = Painter
| training = [[Autodidacticism|Self-educated]]
| movement = 
| works = 
| patrons = 
| awards = 
}}

'''Paul Kane''' (September 3, 1810 – February 20, 1871)<ref name="DCB"/> was an Irish-born Canadian painter whose paintings and especially field sketches were known as one of the first visual documents of Western indigenous life.

A largely [[Autodidacticism|self-educated]] artist,{{sfnp|Gehmacher|2014|p=41}} Paul Kane grew up in [[York, Upper Canada]] (now [[Toronto]]) and trained himself by copying European masters on a "[[Grand Tour]]" study trip through Europe. He undertook two voyages through the Canadian northwest in 1845 and from 1846 to 1848. The first trip took him from Toronto to [[Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario|Sault Ste. Marie]] and back. Having secured the support of the [[Hudson's Bay Company]], he set out on a second, much longer voyage from Toronto across the [[Rocky Mountains]] to [[Fort Vancouver]] (present-day [[Vancouver, Washington]]) and [[Fort Victoria (British Columbia)|Fort Victoria]] (present day [[Victoria, British Columbia]]).

On both trips Kane sketched and painted [[First Nations in Canada|First Nations]] and [[Métis]] peoples. Upon his return to Toronto, he produced more than one hundred [[oil painting]]s from these sketches. The oil paintings he completed in his studio are considered a part of the Canadian heritage, although he often embellished them considerably, departing from the accuracy of his field sketches in favour of more dramatic scenes. Kane's work followed the tenets of [[salvage ethnography]].{{sfnp|Gehmacher|2014|p=35−36}}

==Early life and formative years==
Kane was born in [[Mallow, County Cork]] in Ireland, the fifth child of the eight children of Michael Kane and Frances Loach. His father, a soldier from [[Preston, Lancashire]], England, served in the Royal Horse Artillery until his discharge in 1801.<ref name="DCB"/> The family then settled in Ireland. Sometime between 1819 and 1822, when Kane was around ten, they immigrated to [[Upper Canada]] and settled in [[York, Upper Canada|York]] (now [[Toronto]]).{{sfnp|Gehmacher|2014|p=4}} There, Kane's father operated a shop as a [[Distilled beverage|spirits]] and [[Vintner|wine merchant]].<ref name=Family>{{cite book|last=Kane|first=Paul James|editor=Kenneth R. Lister|title=Paul Kane, the Artist: Wilderness to Studio|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RrBXbwAACAAJ&pg=PP1|year=2010|publisher=Royal Ontario Museum Press|isbn=978-0-88854-480-3|page=48|chapter=The Paul Kane Family}}</ref><ref name="DCB">{{cite DCB |last=Harper |first=J. Russell |author-link=John Russell Harper |title=Paul Kane |volume=10 |url=http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/kane_paul_10E.html}}</ref>

[[File:Kane Mrs Clench.jpg|thumb|An early portrait (ca. 1834–36) attributed to Paul Kane, showing Mrs. Eliza Clarke Cory Clench]]

Not much is known about Kane's youth in York, which at that time was a small settlement of a few thousand people. He went to school at [[Upper Canada College]], and then received some training in painting by an art teacher named Thomas Drury at the [[Upper Canada College]] around 1830.<ref name="DCB"/>{{sfnp|Harper|1971|p=9}} In July 1834, he displayed some of his paintings in the first (and only) exhibition of The Society of Artists and Amateurs in Toronto, gaining a favourable review by a local newspaper, ''The Patriot''.<ref name="james">{{cite book |last=James |first=Mel |chapter=Paul Kane – Wandering Frontier Artist 1810 – 1871 |chapter-url=http://collections.ic.gc.ca/heirloom_series/volume5/266-271.htm |access-date=March 25, 2006 |title=Wayfarers: Canadian Achievers |series=Canada Heirloom Series |volume=5 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/wayfarerscanadia0000unse/page/266 266–271] |publisher=Heirloom |location=North Mississauga, Ontario |date=1996 |isbn=0-9694247-3-6 |url=https://archive.org/details/wayfarerscanadia0000unse/page/266 }}</ref>

Kane began a career as a sign and furniture painter at York until he moved to [[Cobourg, Ontario]], in 1834. He may have taken up a job in the furniture factory of Freeman Schermerhorn Clench, the father of Harriet Clench who Kane married in 1853.<ref name=Family/>{{sfnp|Harper|1971|p=9}}{{sfnp|Gehmacher|2014|p=4}} While in Cobourg, Kane painted several [[portrait]]s of the local personalities, including the sheriff and his employer's wife.<ref name=cobourg>{{cite book |last=Guillet |first=Edwin C. |title=Cobourg 1798 - 1948 |page=283 |publisher=Goodfellow Printing Company |date=1948}}</ref> In 1836 Kane moved to [[Detroit]], [[Michigan]], where the [[Visual arts of the United States|American artist]] [[James Bowman (painter)|James Bowman]] was living. The two had met earlier at York.  Bowman had persuaded Kane that studying art in Europe was a necessity for an aspiring painter, and they had planned to travel to Europe together, along with Samuel Bell Waugh.{{sfnp|Harper|1971|p=11}} But Kane had to postpone the trip, as he was short of money to pay for the passage to Europe and Bowman had married shortly before and was not inclined to leave his family. For the next five years, Kane toured the [[Midwestern United States|American Midwest]], working as an itinerant portrait painter, travelling to [[New Orleans, Louisiana|New Orleans]].{{sfnp|Gehmacher|2014|p=5}}

In June 1841, Kane left America, sailing from New Orleans aboard a ship bound for [[Marseille]] in France, arriving there about three months later, and immediately made out for Italy.{{sfnp|Gehmacher|2014|p=5}} Kane hiked much of this journey, travelling on foot from [[Rome]] to [[Naples]], as well as the [[Brenner Pass]] in Switzerland.{{sfnp|Gehmacher|2014|p=5}} He went on to Paris, then London.{{sfnp|Harper|1971|p=12}} In London he may have encountered [[George Catlin]], an American [[Salvage ethnography|salvage]] painter who had made his career painting Native Americans on the [[prairies]] and who now was on a promotion tour for his book, ''Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs and Conditions of the North American Indians.'' Catlin lectured at [[Egyptian Hall]] at [[Piccadilly]], where he also exhibited some of his paintings. In his book Catlin argued that the cultures of Native Americans were disappearing and should be recorded before passing into oblivion. Kane found the argument compelling and decided to similarly document Canadian First Nations.{{sfnp|Gehmacher|2014|p=6}}

Kane returned in early 1843 to [[Mobile, Alabama]], where he set up a studio and worked as a portrait painter until he had paid back the money borrowed for his voyage to Europe.{{sfnp|Harper|1971|p=14}} He returned to Toronto late 1844 or early 1845 and immediately began preparing for his journey west.{{sfnp|Gehmacher|2014|p=6}}

==Travels in the Northwest==
[[Image:Kane Lake Huron Sketch.jpg|thumb|[[Ojibwa]] camp at the shores of [[Georgian Bay]]; a typical field sketch of Kane's from his first trip 1845]]

Kane set out on his own on June 17, 1845, travelling along the northern shores of the [[Lake Huron]], moving through [[Saugeen First Nation|Saugeen]] land.{{sfnp|Gehmacher|2014|p=7}}<ref name="reid">{{cite book|last=Reid|first=Dennis R.|title=A Concise History of Canadian Painting|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hqHqAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA50|edition=2nd|year=1988|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-540664-1|pages=50–58|chapter=Paul Kane and Cornelius Krieghoff}}</ref> After weeks of sketching, he reached [[Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario|Sault Ste. Marie]] between [[Lake Superior]] and [[Lake Huron]] in summer 1845. He had intended to travel further west, but [[John Ballenden]], the local [[Factor (agent)|Chief Trader]] for the [[Hudson's Bay Company]] stationed at Sault Ste. Marie, told him of the many difficulties and perils of travelling alone through the western territories and advised Kane to attempt such a feat only with the support of the company.{{sfnp|Gehmacher|2014|p=7}} After the Hudson's Bay Company had taken over its competitor, the [[North West Company]] of [[Montreal]], in 1821, the whole territory west of the Great Lakes until the [[Pacific Ocean]] and the [[Oregon Country]] was operating under their [[monopoly]], with about a hundred isolated outposts of the company along the major [[fur trade]] routes. Kane returned to Toronto for the winter, elaborating his field sketches to oil canvases, and in spring of the next year, he went to the headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company at [[Lachine, Quebec|Lachine]] and asked company governor [[George Simpson (administrator)|George Simpson]] for support for his travel plans. Simpson was impressed by Kane's artistic ability, and the letters of support of Ballenden and [[John Henry Lefroy]],{{sfnp|Gehmacher|2014|p=7}} but at the same time worried that Kane might not have the stamina needed to travel with the [[fur brigade]]s of the company. He granted Kane passage on company [[canoe]]s only as far as [[Lake Winnipeg]], with the promise of full passage if the artist did well until then. Kane would travel HBC routes with the company's explicit aid and blessing for the next two years, and much of his sketching was done at their tradeposts.{{sfnp|Gehmacher|2014|p=8}}

===Going west===
[[File:Cree pipe stem carrier-Cree warrior.jpg|thumb|Painting by Kane of a Plains Cree warrior and pipe stem carrier. Seen along the North Saskatchewan River, Saskatchewan Canada.]]

On May 9, 1846, Kane departed by [[steamboat]] from Toronto with the intent to join a canoe brigade from Lachine at Sault Ste. Marie. After an overnight stop, he missed the boat, which had left in the morning earlier than advertised, and he had to race after it by canoe. Arriving at the Sault, he learned that the canoe brigade had already left, so he sailed aboard a freight [[schooner]] to [[Fort William, Ontario|Fort William]] on [[Thunder Bay (Ontario)|Thunder Bay]]. He finally caught up with the canoes about {{convert|35|mi|km}} beyond Fort William on the [[Kaministiquia River]] on May 24.

By June 4 Kane reached [[Fort Frances]], where a pass from Simpson for travelling further was awaiting him. His next stop was the [[Red River Colony]] (near modern-day [[Winnipeg]]). There, he embarked on a three-week excursion by horse, joining a large [[Métis]] hunting band that went buffalo hunting in [[Sioux]] lands in [[Dakota Territory]] in the United States. On June 26 Kane witnessed and participated in one of the last great [[American Bison|buffalo]] hunts, which within a few decades, aided by railroad travel, decimated the animals to near-extinction. Upon his return he continued by canoe and sailing boats by way of [[Norway House]], [[Grand Rapids, Manitoba|Grand Rapids]], and [[The Pas]] up the [[Saskatchewan River]] to [[Fort Carlton]]. For variety, he continued from there on horseback to [[Fort Edmonton]], witnessing a [[Cree]] buffalo pound hunt along the way.

[[File:Kane Jasper House.jpg|thumb|Jasper's House as painted in a field sketch by Kane in 1846]]

On October 6, 1846, Kane left Edmonton for [[Fort Assiniboine]], where he again embarked with a canoe brigade up the [[Athabasca River]] to [[Jasper, Alberta|Jasper's House]], arriving on November 3. Here he joined a large horse troop bound west, but the party soon had to send the horses back to Jasper's House and continue on [[snowshoe]]s, taking only the essentials with them, because [[Athabasca Pass]] was already too deeply snowed in that late in the year. They crossed the pass on November 12 and three days later joined a canoe brigade that had been waiting to take them down the [[Columbia River]].

===In the Oregon country===
[[Image:Kane Lodge.jpg|thumb|The interior of a ceremonial lodge in the [[Columbia River]] region painted by Paul Kane in 1846]]

Finally, Kane arrived on December 18, 1846, at [[Fort Vancouver]], the main trading post and headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company in the [[Oregon Territory]]. He stayed there over winter, sketching among and studying the [[Chinookan]] and other tribes in the vicinity and making several excursions, including a longer one of three weeks through the [[Willamette Valley]]. He enjoyed the social life at Fort Vancouver, which at that time was being visited by the British ship ''Modeste'', and became friends with [[Peter Skene Ogden]].

On March 25, 1847,<ref name="DCB"/> Kane set out by canoe to Fort Victoria, which had been founded shortly before to become the new company headquarters, as the operations at Fort Vancouver were to be wound down and relocated following the conclusion of the [[Oregon Treaty]] of 1846, which fixed the continental border between Canada and the United States west of the [[Rocky Mountains]] at the [[49th parallel north]]. Kane went up the [[Cowlitz River]] and stayed for a week among the tribes living there in the vicinity of [[Mount St. Helens]] before continuing on horseback to [[Fort Nisqually|Nisqually]] (today [[Tacoma, Washington|Tacoma]]) and then by canoe again to Fort Victoria.

[[File:Mount St Helens erupting at night by Paul Kane.jpg|thumb|''[[Mount St. Helens]] erupting at night ''<br />by Kane after his 1847 visit to the area]]

His painting of [[Mount St. Helens]] in eruption at night in 1847 which is in the collection of the [[Royal Ontario Museum]] in Toronto was the only known image of an active Cascade volcano until the eruption of Lassen Peak in California in 1914. Although the scene was somewhat fictionalized, it did correctly show the active vent on the side of the volcano rather that the summit. He stayed for two months in that area, traveling and sketching among the Native Americans on [[Vancouver Island]] and around the [[Juan de Fuca Strait]] and the [[Strait of Georgia]]. He returned to Fort Vancouver in mid-June, from where he departed to return east on July 1, 1847.

===Crossing the Rockies again===
By mid-July Kane had reached [[Fort Nez Percé|Fort Walla Walla]]{{#tag:ref|This Fort Walla Walla was founded by the North West Company in 1818 as [[Fort Nez Percé]] at the mouth of the [[Walla Walla River]], where it meets the Columbia river on the area of today's [[Wallula, Washington]]. It is unrelated to [[Fort Walla Walla]], located at [[Walla Walla, Washington]],<ref name="top">{{cite web |last=Topinka |first=Lyn |title=Wallula, Washington |url=http://englishriverwebsite.com/LewisClarkColumbiaRiver/Regions/Places/wallula.html  |publisher=English River Website |year=2005 |access-date=June 7, 2010 |url-status=usurped |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20071021021601/http://englishriverwebsite.com/LewisClarkColumbiaRiver/Regions/Places/wallula.html |archive-date = October 21, 2007}}</ref>|group=note}} where he made a minor detour to visit the [[Whitman Mission National Historic Site|Whitman Mission]] that a few months later would be the site of the [[Whitman massacre]]. He went with [[Marcus Whitman]] to visit the [[Cayuse people|Cayuse]] living in the area and happened to draw a portrait of Tomahas (Kane gives the name as "To-ma-kus"), the man who would later be named as Whitman's murderer. According to Kane's travel report, the relations between the Cayuse and the settlers at the mission were already strained by the time of his visit in July.

[[Image:Kane Winter Scene.jpg|thumb|Kane crossed the [[Rocky Mountains]] twice in winter. (Field sketch by Kane, 1846.)]]

Kane continued with one guide by horseback through the [[Grand Coulee|Grande Coulée]] to [[Fort Colvile]], where he stayed for six weeks, sketching and painting the natives who had set up a fishing camp below [[Kettle Falls]] at this time of the [[salmon run]]. On September 22, 1847, Kane assumed command of a canoe brigade up the Columbia River and arrived on October 10 at [[Boat Encampment]]{{#tag:ref|The site of Boat Encampment is inundated since the construction of [[Mica Dam]], with the ensuing flooding of [[Wood River (British Columbia)|Wood River]] and [[Kinbasket Lake]].<ref name="her">N.N.: ''[http://www.ourheritage.net/index_page_stuff/Following_Trails/Kane/Kane_boat_encampment.html Paul Kane Timeline: Boat Encampment] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050926081301/http://www.ourheritage.net/index_page_stuff/Following_Trails/Kane/Kane_boat_encampment.html |date=September 26, 2005 }}'', "Our Heritage" web site. URL last accessed January 2, 2006.</ref>|group=note}}. The party had to wait for three weeks until a badly delayed horse trek from Jasper arrived. Then they switched, the horse team taking over the canoes and going down the Columbia River, and Kane's group loading their cargo on the horses and taking them back over Athabasca Pass. They managed to bring all 56 horses safely and without loss to Jasper's House, despite the heavy snow and intense cold. As the canoes that should have been awaiting them had already left, they were forced to set out on snowshoes and with a dog sled to Fort Assiniboine, where they arrived after much hardship and without food two weeks later. After a few days' rest, they continued to Fort Edmonton, where they spent the winter.

Kane passed the time at the fort with buffalo hunting, and also sketched among the Cree living in the vicinity. In January he undertook an excursion to [[Fort Pitt (Saskatchewan)|Fort Pitt]], some {{convert|200|mi|km}} down the [[Saskatchewan River]], and then returned to Edmonton. In April he visited [[Rocky Mountain House]], where he wanted to meet the [[Blackfoot]]. When they did not turn up, he returned to Edmonton.

===Going back east===
[[Image:Kane Fort Edmonton.jpg|thumb|The fifth Fort Edmonton was constructed on the high ground above the [[North Saskatchewan River]] after the fourth fort, which had been located on the river banks, had been flooded several times.]]

On May 25, 1848, Kane left Fort Edmonton, travelling with a large party of 23 boats and 130 people bound for [[York Factory]], led by [[John Edward Harriott]].  On June 1 they met with a large war party of some 1,500 warriors of [[Blackfoot]] and other tribes who were planning a raid against the Cree and [[Assiniboine people|Assiniboine]]. On that occasion Kane met the Blackfoot chief Big Snake (Omoxesisixany). The canoe brigade stayed as briefly as possible and then continued hastily down the river. On June 18 they arrived at Norway House, where Kane stayed for a month, waiting for the annual meeting of the chief factors of the Hudson's Bay Company and the arrival of the party with which he was bound to travel further. On July 24 he departed with the party of one Major McKenzie; they travelled along the eastern shore of Lake Winnipeg to [[Fort Alexander, Manitoba|Fort Alexander]]. From there on Kane followed the same route he had taken two years earlier going west: by the [[Lake of the Woods]], [[Fort Frances]], and [[Rainy Lake]], he travelled by canoe to Fort William and then along the northern shore of [[Lake Superior]] until he reached Sault Ste. Marie on October 1, 1848. From there he returned by steamboat to Toronto, where he landed on October 13. He noted in his book on this last leg of his journey: "the greatest hardship that I had to endure [now] was the difficulty in trying to sleep in a civilized bed".

==Life in Toronto==
[[File:Paul Kane.jpg|thumb|Paul Kane, c. 1850]]
Kane permanently settled in Toronto.  He went West once more when he was hired by a British party in 1849 as a guide and interpreter, but they went only as far as the [[Red River Colony]]. An exhibition of 240 of his sketches in November 1848 in Toronto met with great success, and a second exhibition in September 1852 of eight oil canvases was also received favourably.<ref name="rom">{{cite web |title=Paul Kane (1810-1871) |work=Paul Kane: Land Study, Studio View |publisher=[[Royal Ontario Museum]] |url=http://www.rom.on.ca/kane/pages/biography.html |access-date=March 25, 2006 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050205202604/http://www.rom.on.ca/kane/pages/biography.html |archive-date=February 5, 2005}}<br>{{bullet}}
{{cite web |title=Journey 1845–1848 |work=Paul Kane: Land Study, Studio View |publisher=Royal Ontario Museum |url=http://www.rom.on.ca/kane/pages/western.html  |access-date=May 20, 2017 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050311214737/http://www.rom.on.ca/kane/pages/western.html |archive-date=March 11, 2005}}<br>{{bullet}}
{{cite web |title=1848 exhibit |work=Paul Kane: Land Study, Studio View |publisher=Royal Ontario Museum |url=http://www.rom.on.ca/kane/pages/1848.html |access-date=March 25, 2006 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050311214808/http://www.rom.on.ca/kane/pages/1848.html |archive-date=March 11, 2005}} with Newspaper reactions<br>{{bullet}}
{{cite web |title=1852 exhibition |work=Paul Kane: Land Study, Studio View |publisher=Royal Ontario Museum |url=http://www.rom.on.ca/kane/pages/1852.html |access-date=March 25, 2006 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050311111731/http://www.rom.on.ca/kane/pages/1852.html |archive-date=March 11, 2005}} with contemporary reviews<br>{{bullet}}
{{cite web |title=Collection of Artifacts |work=Paul Kane: Land Study, Studio View |publisher=Royal Ontario Museum |url=http://www.rom.on.ca/kane/pages/collection.html |access-date=March 25, 2006 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050311215006/http://www.rom.on.ca/kane/pages/collection.html |archive-date=March 11, 2005}}<br>{{bullet}}
''Death of Big Snake'' painting.)</ref> The politician [[George William Allan]] took note of the artist and became his most important patron, commissioning one hundred oil paintings for the price of [[Canadian Dollar|$]]20,000 in 1852.  This enabled Kane to live a life as a professional artist. Kane also succeeded in 1851 to convince the [[Parliament of the Province of Canada]] to commission twelve paintings for the sum of [[Pound sterling|£]]500, which he delivered in late 1856.

In 1853, Kane married [[Harriet Clench]] (1823–1892), the daughter of his former employer at Cobourg.<ref name=cobourg /> David Wilson, a contemporary historian of the [[University of Toronto]], reported that she was also a skilled painter and writer. They had four children, two sons and two daughters.

Until 1857, Kane fulfilled his commissions: more than 120 oil canvases for Allan, the Parliament, and Simpson. His works were shown at the [[Exposition Universelle (1855)|World's Fair at Paris in 1855]], where they were reviewed very positively, and some of them were sent to [[Buckingham Palace]] in 1858 for consideration by [[Victoria of the United Kingdom|Queen Victoria]]. [[File:Paul Kane House, Toronto.jpg|thumb|left|{{center|House at 56 Wellesley Street East, Toronto, built by Kane in 1853}}]] By that time Kane had also prepared a manuscript derived from his travel notes and sent to a publishing house in London for publication. When he did not hear back from them, he travelled to London and, with the support of Simpson, got the book published the next year. It was titled ''The Wanderings of an Artist among the Indians of North America from Canada to Vancouver's Island and Oregon through the Hudson's Bay Company's Territory and Back Again'' and was originally published by Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans & Roberts in London in 1859, illustrated with many [[lithography|lithographs]] of his own sketches and paintings. Kane had dedicated the book to Allan, which upset Simpson so that he broke off his relations with Kane. The book was an immediate success and had appeared by 1863 in French, Danish, and German editions.

Kane's eyesight was failing rapidly in the 1860s and forced him to abandon painting altogether. [[Frederick Arthur Verner]], who had been inspired by Kane and was an artist of "western" scenes, became an acquaintance and friend. Verner did three portraits of the ageing Paul Kane, one of which is today at the [[Royal Ontario Museum]]. Kane died unexpectedly one winter morning in 1871 in his home, just having returned from his daily walk. He is buried at the St. James Cemetery in Toronto.<ref name="rom" />

==Works==
{|border="1" style="float:right; margin-left:1em;"
|-
|valign="top"|[[Image:Kane Flathead Child.jpg|170px|Field sketch of a Flathead baby]]
|rowspan="2"|[[Image:Kane Flathead Woman Sketch.jpg|120px|Field sketch of a Cowlitz woman (Caw Wacham)]]
|-
||Two field sketches by Kane<br />Click images for larger views
|-
|colspan="2"  |[[Image:Kane Caw Wacham.jpg|250px|thumb|center|''Flathead woman and child (Caw Wacham)'', 1848–53, and the two field sketches Kane combined in this painting, illustrating the artistic liberties he allowed himself when elaborating the sketches into oil canvases.]]
|}

The bulk of Kane's oeuvre is the more than 700 sketches he made during his two voyages to the west and the more than one hundred oil canvases he later elaborated from them in his studio in Toronto. Of his early portraits done at York or Cobourg before his travels, Harper writes, "[they] are primitive in approach but have a direct appeal and a warm colouring that make them attractive".<ref name="DCB"/> The rest are an unknown number of paintings from his time as an itinerant portraitist in the United States, plus a number of copies of classic paintings he did while in Europe.

Kane's fame rests in his depictions of Native American life. His field sketches were done in pencil, watercolour, or oil on paper. He also brought back from his trips a collection of various artefacts such as masks, pipe stems, and other handicrafts.  Together, these formed the basis for his later studio work. He drew on this pool of impressions for his large oil canvases, in which he typically combined or reinterpreted them to create new compositions. The field sketches are a valuable resource for ethnologists, but the oil paintings, while still truthful in the individual details of Native American lifestyle, are often unfaithful to geographic, historic, or ethnographic settings in their overall compositions.

One well-known example of this process is Kane's painting ''Flathead woman and child'', in which he combined a sketch of a [[Chinookan]] baby having its [[Head flattening|head flattened]] by being strapped to a [[cradle board]] with a later field portrait of a Cowlitz woman living in a different region. Another example of how Kane elaborated his sketches can be seen in his painting ''Indian encampment on Lake Huron'', which is based on a sketch taken in summer 1845 during his first trip to Sault Ste. Marie. The painting has a distinct [[Romanticism|romantic]] flair accentuated by the lighting and the dramatic clouds, while the scene of the camp life depicted is reminiscent of a European idealized rural peasant scene.

Indeed, Kane often created completely fictitious scenes from several sketches for his oil paintings. His oil canvas of ''Mount St. Helens erupting'' shows a major and dramatic [[volcano|volcanic]] eruption, but from his travel diary and the field sketches he made, it is evident that the mountain had only been smoking gently at the time of Kane's visit. (It had, however, erupted three years earlier.) In other paintings he combined river sketches taken at different times and places into one painting, creating an artificial landscape that does not exist in reality. His painting of ''The Death of Big Snake'' shows an entirely imaginary scene: the [[Blackfoot]] chief Omoxesisixany died only in 1858, more than two years after the painting was completed.

[[File:Kane Lake Huron Oil.jpg|thumb|left|''Indian encampment on [[Lake Huron]]'', 1848–50. Oil painting after the field sketch from 1845 shown [[#Travels in the Northwest|above]].]]

His models were classic European paintings (for instance, his work may evoke the work of Salvatore Rosa)<ref>{{cite web |last1=MacLaren |first1=I.S. |title=Article |website=cowleyabbott.ca |publisher=Cowley Abbott Auction|url=https://cowleyabbott.ca/artwork/AW41521 |access-date=11 July 2023}}</ref> but Kane also had plain economic reasons for composing his oil paintings in the more mannered style of the European art tradition. He wanted and had to sell his paintings to make a living, and he knew his clientele well enough: his patrons were unlikely to decorate their homes with unadorned copies in oil of his field sketches; they demanded something more presentable and closer to the generally Eurocentric expectations of the time.<ref name="eaton">{{cite book|last1=Eaton|first1=Diane|last2=Urbanek|first2=Sheila|title=Paul Kane's Great Nor-West|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PebwNoXxzqgC&pg=PP1|year=1996|publisher=UBC Press|isbn=978-0-7748-4183-2}}</ref>

Kane's embellishment is evident in his painting ''Assiniboine hunting buffalo'', one of the twelve done for the parliament. The painting has been criticized for its horses, which look more like [[Arabian horse]]s than anything relevant to the Canadian West. The composition has even been found to be based on an 1816 engraving from Italy showing two Romans hunting a bull. Already in 1877, [[Nicholas Flood Davin]] commented on this discrepancy, stating that "the Indian horses are Greek horses, the hills have much of the colour and form of those of [...] the early European landscape painters, ..." And [[Lawrence Johnstone Burpee]] added in his introduction to the 1925 reprint of Kane's travel book that the sketches were "truer interpretations of the wild western life" and had "in some respects a higher value as art".<ref name="garv">{{cite book|last1=Kane|first1=Paul|last2=Burpee|first2=Lawrence Johnstone|author-link2=Lawrence Johnstone Burpee|editor=John William Garvin|editor-link=John William Garvin|title=Wanderings of an Artist Among the Indians of North America: From Canada to Vancouver's Island and Oregon, Through the Hudson's Bay Company's Territory and Back Again|url=https://archive.org/details/wanderingsofarti0007kane|url-access=registration|year=1925|publisher=Radison Society of Canada|location=Toronto}}</ref> [[File:Kane Assiniboine hunting buffalo.jpg|thumb|''Assiniboine hunting buffalo'', 1851–56, an oil painting exemplifying the strong influence of European classic art conventions on Kane's studio work.]] Twentieth century and later art theory is less judging than Burpee but agrees insofar as Kane's field sketches are generally considered more accurate and authentic. "Kane was the recorder in the field and the artist in the studio", write Davis and Thacker.<ref name="davis">{{cite journal |last1=Davis |first1=Ann |last2=Thacker |first2=Robert |title=Pictures and Prose: Romantic Sensibility and the Great Plains in Catlin, Kane, and Miller |journal=Great Plains Quarterly |volume=6|issue=1 |date=Winter 1986 |pages=3–20 |url=https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1890&context=greatplainsquarterly}}</ref>

Kane is generally considered a classic and one of the most important Canadian painters. The eleven surviving paintings done for the parliament—one painting was lost in the fire on [[Parliament Hill]] in 1916—were transferred in 1955 to the [[National Gallery of Canada]]. The large Allan collection was bought by [[Edmund Boyd Osler (1845)|Edmund Boyd Osler]] in 1903 and donated to the [[Royal Ontario Museum]] in Toronto in 1912. A collection of 229 sketches was sold by Kane's grandson Paul Kane III for about US$100,000 to the [[Stark Museum of Art]] in [[Orange, Texas]], in 1957.<ref name="mac">{{cite journal |last=MacLaren |first=I.S. |title=Paul Kane Goes South: The Sale of the Family's Collection of Field Sketches |journal=Journal of Canadian Studies |date=Summer 1997 |volume=32|issue=2|pages=22–47 |doi=10.3138/jcs.32.2.22 |s2cid=141000406 |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/673200/pdf|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

[[File:Kane The Surveyor.jpg|thumb|left|''[[The Surveyor: Portrait of Captain John Henry Lefroy]]'', {{circa|1845}}, sold at a record price of more than 5 million [[Canadian dollar]]s in 2002. The painting is sometimes also called ''Scene in the Northwest''.]]

A rare painting of his, ''[[Scene in the Northwest: Portrait of John Henry Lefroy]]'', showing British [[surveying|surveyor]] [[John Henry Lefroy]], which had been in possession of the Lefroy family in England, garnered a record price at an auction at [[Sotheby's]] in Toronto on February 25, 2002, when Canadian billionaire [[Kenneth Thomson, 2nd Baron Thomson of Fleet|Kenneth Thomson]]<ref name="ctv02">{{cite news |agency=Canadian Press |title=Thomson family buyer of $117-million painting |publisher=CTV News |date=July 13, 2002 |url=http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1026525054058_144 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071022091327/http://ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1026525054058_144 |archive-date=October 22, 2007}}</ref> won the bid at C$5,062,500 including the buyer's premium (US$3,172,567.50 at the time).<ref name="mad">{{cite web |title=Rare Paul Kane Painting Brings CDN$5 Million |publisher=Maine Antique Digest |date=May 2002 |url=http://maineantiquedigest.com/articles_archive/articles/may02/kane0502.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070928015753/http://maineantiquedigest.com/articles_archive/articles/may02/kane0502.htm |archive-date=September 28, 2007}}</ref> Thomson subsequently donated the painting as part of his Thomson Collection to the [[Art Gallery of Ontario]]. The [[Glenbow Museum]] in [[Calgary]] has a copy of this painting that is thought to have been done by Kane's wife Harriet Clench.<ref name="stof">{{cite news |last=Stofmann |first=Judy |title=$5,062,500; A rare painting by Paul Kane sets a new record for Canadian Art |page=A3 |work=[[Toronto Star]] |via=Loch Gallery |date=February 26, 2002 |url=http://www.lochgallery.com/content/view/59/50/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120209125136/http://www.lochgallery.com/content/view/59/50/ |archive-date=February 9, 2012 |access-date=December 20, 2005}}</ref> Another auction at Sotheby's on November 22, 2004, for Kane's oil painting ''Encampment, Winnipeg River'' (after the field sketch shown [[#Going west|above]]) failed when bidding stopped at C$1.7 million, less than the expected sale price of C$2–2.5 million.<ref name="ctv">{{cite news |agency=Canadian Press |title=Bidding stalls at $1.7M for Paul Kane painting |publisher=CTV News |date=November 22, 2004 |url=http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/print/CTVNews/1101145141703_96554341/?hub=Canada&subhub=PrintStory |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071023001255/http://ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/print/CTVNews/1101145141703_96554341/?hub=Canada&subhub=PrintStory |archive-date=October 23, 2007}}</ref>

Kane's travel report, published originally in London in 1859, was a great success already in its time and has been reprinted several times in the twentieth century. In 1986 Dawkins criticized Kane's work based mainly on this travel account, but also on the "European" nature of his oil paintings, as showing the imperialistic or even racist tendencies of the artist.<ref name="dawkins">{{cite magazine |last=Dawkins |first=Heather |title=Paul Kane and the eye of power: Racism in Canadian art history |magazine=[[Vanguard (magazine)|Vanguard]] |volume=15|issue=4 |date=1986 |page=24 |url=http://ccca.concordia.ca/c/writing/d/dawkins/daw001t.html}}</ref> This view remains rather singular among art historians. Kane's travel diary, which formed the basis for the 1859 book, does not contain any pejorative judgements. MacLaren reported that Kane's travel notes were written in a style very different from the published text, such that it must be considered highly likely that the book was heavily edited by others or even ghostwritten to turn Kane's notes into a Victorian travel account, and that it was thus difficult at best to ascribe any perceived racism to the artist himself.<ref name="mac2">{{cite conference |last=MacLaren |first=I.S. |title=Creating Travel Literature: The Case of Paul Kane |conference=43rd Annual Meeting |publisher=Bibliographical Society of Canada |location=University of Windsor, Ontario |date=May 31, 1988 |pages=80–95 |url=https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/bsc/article/download/17699/14633}}</ref>

==Legacy and influence==
[[File:Historic Paul Kane House, on Wellesley, 2017 05 12 -b (33786944554).jpg|thumb|The city named a small park after Kane, in front of his Toronto home.  The [[Paul Kane House]] was incorporated into the Church-Isabella Resident's Cooperative in 1985.]]

As one of the first Canadian painters who could earn a living from his artwork alone,<ref name="reid" /> Kane prepared the ground for many later artists. His travels inspired others to similar journeys, and a very direct artistic influence is evident in the case of [[Frederick Arthur Verner|F. A. Verner]], whose mentor Kane became in his later years. According to Harper, the early [[Lucius Richard O'Brien|Lucius O'Brien]] was also influenced by Kane's work.<ref name="DCB" /> Kane's 1848 exhibition of his sketches, which included 155 watercolour and 85 oil on paper paintings, helped establish the genre in the minds of the public and cleared the way for artists like [[William Nichol Cresswell|William Cresswell]] or [[Daniel Fowler]], who both were able to make a living from their watercolour paintings.<ref name="mac" />

Both his 1848 exhibition of the sketches and the later 1852 show of some of his oil paintings were great success and lauded by several newspapers.<ref name="rom" /> Kane was the most prominent painter in Upper Canada in his time. He frequently entered his paintings at art exhibitions and won numerous prizes for his works. He dominated the scene throughout the 1850s, even to the point where an art jury all but presented their excuses when they did ''not'' award him the prize in the category for historical paintings at the annual exhibition of the Upper Canada Agricultural Society in 1852. (Kane won that prize consecutively in all years until 1859, though.)<ref name="bulletin">{{cite magazine |last=Harper |first=J. Russell |title=A Study of Art at the Upper Canada Provincial Exhibitions: Ontario Painters 1846–1867 |publisher=National Gallery of Canada |magazine=Bulletin |volume=1 |issue=1 |date=May 1963 |url=https://www.gallery.ca/bulletin/num1/harper2.html}}</ref>

Kane was one of the first, if not ''the'' first, tourist to travel across the Canadian west and the Pacific north-west.<ref name="eaton" /> Through his sketches and paintings, and later also his book, the public at large in [[Upper Canada|Upper]] and [[Lower Canada]] for the first time caught a glimpse of the peoples and their lifestyles in this vast and barely known territory. Kane had set out with a sincere desire to accurately portray his experiences—the landscape, the people, their tools. Yet it was primarily his embellished studio work that gained public appeal and made him famous. His idealized oil paintings and the similarly transformed travel notes that became his book were both a factor in the establishment and spreading of the perception of the North American indigenous people as [[noble savage]]s, contrary to what the artist had intended.<ref name="bess">{{cite encyclopedia |last=Bessai |first=John |title=The Adventurous Paintings of Paul Kane |encyclopedia=[[The Canadian Encyclopedia]] |date=January 25, 2019 |publisher=[[Historica Canada]] |edition=online |url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/paul-kane-artist-and-adventurer-feature |access-date=September 14, 2019}}</ref> The more truthful field sketches were "rediscovered" and valued by a wider audience only in the twentieth century.

In 1937 Kane was declared a National Historic Person, and a plaque to commemorate him was dedicated in Rocky Mountain House in 1952.<ref>{{DFHD|1476|Kane, Paul National Historic Person}}</ref>

On August 11, 1971, the year of the centenary of Kane's death, [[Canada Post]] issued a postage stamp entitled 'Paul Kane, painter', designed by [[William Rueter]] based on Kane's painting "Indian Encampment on Lake Huron". The 7¢ stamps have [[Postage stamp separation#Measurement and variations|12.5 perforation]] and were printed by the British American Bank Note Company.<ref>{{cite web |title=Paul Kane, painter |work=Canadian Postal Archives Database |publisher=[[Library and Archives Canada]] |date=August 11, 1971 |url=http://data4.collectionscanada.gc.ca/netacgi/nph-brs?s1=(artist.A790,C790.)+Or+(null.B742.)&l=50&d=STMP&p=1&u=http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/archivianet/02011702_e.html&r=29&f=G&Sect1=STMP |access-date=March 20, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170816011250/http://data4.collectionscanada.gc.ca/netacgi/nph-brs?s1=%28artist.A790%2CC790.%29+Or+%28null.B742.%29&l=50&d=STMP&p=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.collectionscanada.gc.ca%2Farchivianet%2F02011702_e.html&r=29&f=G&Sect1=STMP |archive-date=August 16, 2017 |url-status=dead |df=mdy-all}}</ref>

In 1978, the City of Toronto purchased the dilapidated [[Paul Kane House]], which Kane and his heirs had lived in. The building  was later designated a heritage structure under the ''[[Ontario Heritage Act]]''. In 1985, the structure was refurbished and the front yard developed into a small park.

[[Paul Kane High School]] in [[St. Albert, Alberta|St. Albert]], [[Alberta]] was named in honor of Kane. A park in the Oliver neighbourhood of Edmonton was also named after him.

==See also==
* [[Elbridge Ayer Burbank]]
* [[George Catlin]]
* [[Seth and Mary Eastman]]
* [[W. Langdon Kihn]]
* [[Charles Bird King]]
* [[Joseph Henry Sharp]]
* [[John Mix Stanley]]

==Footnotes==
{{Reflist|group=note|colwidth=35em}}

==References==
The main sources used for this article are Eaton/Urbanek, the Garvin reprint of Kane's travel journal, and Harper's entry for Kane in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography.
{{Reflist}}

== Further reading ==
* Bosley, A.: "A Brush with Reality", ''[[Ottawa Citizen]]''; April 21, 2002.
* Fitzgerald, W. R.: ''On the Threshold of a Dream''; exhibition catalogue; Bruce County Museum & Cultural Centre, 2005.
* {{cite book |last=Gehmacher |first=Arlene |title=Paul Kane: Life & Work |publisher=[[Art Canada Institute]] |date=2014 |isbn= 978-1-4871-0032-2 |url=https://www.aci-iac.ca/content/art-books/17/Art-Canada-Institute_Paul-Kane.pdf}}
* {{cite book|last=Harper|first=J Russell|title=Paul Kane's Frontier; Including Wanderings of an Artist Among the Indians of North America by Paul Kane|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=w2v0vgEACAAJ&pg=PP1|year=1971|publisher=University of Texas Press}}
* MacLaren, I. S. :''"I came to rite thare portraits": Paul Kane's Journal of His Western Travels, 1846–1848'', American Art Journal '''21'''(2), 1989.
* {{cite book|last=Morgan|first=Henry James|title=Sketches of Celebrated Canadians: And Persons Connected with Canada, from the Earliest Period in the History of the Province Down to the Present Time|url=http://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.38173/747|year=1862|publisher=Hunter, Rose & Company|location=Quebec|pages=731–733}}
*{{cite book |last1=MacLaren |first1=I. S. |title=Paul Kane's Travels in Indigenous North America: Writings and Art, Life and Times |date=2024 |publisher=McGill-Queen’s University Press |location=Montreal and Kingston|url=https://library.gallery.ca/search~S1?/amaclaren%2C+i.+s./amaclaren+i+s/1%2C1%2C4%2CB/frameset&FF=amaclaren+i+s+++++1951&4%2C%2C4|isbn=9780228017462 |access-date=11 May 2024}}
* {{cite book|last=Pratt|first=Stephanie|editor=Daniel J. Rycroft|title=World Art and the Legacies of Colonial Violence|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1DwrDwAAQBAJ&pg=PP1|year=2013|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-1-351-53632-5|pages=59–82|chapter=Integrating the ‘Indian’: the Indigenous American collections of George Catlin and Paul Kane}}

==External links==
{{Commons}}
* ''[https://www.aci-iac.ca/art-books/war-art-in-canada/ War Art in Canada: A Critical History]'', by Laura Brandon published by the [[Art Canada Institute]].
* {{FadedPage|id=Kane, Paul|name=Paul Kane (illustrator)|author=yes}}
* {{Internet Archive author |search=( creator:(("Kane, Paul" OR "Paul Kane") AND "1810-1871") )}}
*''[http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/paul-kane/ Paul Kane]'' at the Canadian Encyclopedia.
*{{Cite Appletons'|wstitle=Kane, Paul|year=1892 |short=x |notaref=x}}
*''[http://www.paulkane.ca/english.html Paul Kane Interactive]'', by CineFocus Canada
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20140227041106/http://starkculturalvenues.org/starkmuseum/collections/artists/paul-kane Sketches of Paul Kane] at the [[Stark Museum of Art]]
*''[https://web.archive.org/web/20070510022558/http://www.paulkane.ca/main/docum.html Visions from the Wilderness: The Art of Paul Kane]'', online documentary produced by CineFocus Canada
*''[http://www.nfb.ca/film/paul_kane_goes_west/ Paul Kane Goes West]'', online documentary produced by the [[National Film Board of Canada]]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20060615084458/http://canadianheritage.org/reproductions/20132.htm Another photograph of Paul Kane], undated. Library and Archives of Canada, reproduction number C-000261.
*[https://archive.today/20130101044754/http://data4.collectionscanada.ca/netacgi/nph-brs?s1=paul+kane&l=50&Sect1=IMAGE&Sect2=THESOFF&Sect4=THESOFF&Sect5=FOTOPEN&Sect6=HITOFF&d=FOTO&p=1&u=http://www.collectionscanada.ca/archivianet/02011502_e.html&r=1&f=G A photograph of Kane's wife], Harriet Clench.

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[[Category:1810 births]]
[[Category:1871 deaths]]
[[Category:Irish emigrants to pre-Confederation Ontario]]
[[Category:19th-century Canadian painters]]
[[Category:Canadian male painters]]
[[Category:19th-century Irish painters]]
[[Category:Irish male painters]]
[[Category:Persons of National Historic Significance (Canada)]]
[[Category:People from Mallow, County Cork]]
[[Category:Painters from Toronto]]
[[Category:Pre-Confederation Ontario people]]
[[Category:Oregon Country]]
[[Category:19th-century Canadian male artists]]
[[Category:19th-century Irish male artists]]
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