18 × 12 in
in
cm
$9,000
In this preparatory drawing for his large painting Sunday in the Park with Dandies (2010), Kent Monkman evokes the Post-Impressionist composition of Georges Seurat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte (1884). However, rather than lounging Parisians, Monkman depicts Indigenous dandies with long hair smoking pipes in attire that evokes both European and First Nations cultures. This is indicative of the Cree painter, filmmaker, and illustrator’s rich and critically lauded oeuvre. Monkman appropriates and disrupts the visual language of western art history in order to draw attention to the devastating effects of colonialism, particularly focusing on its impact on sexuality. This preparatory drawing offers a rare glimpse into Monkman’s artistic practice, allowing viewers to appreciate the tremendous influence of both Western art history and Indigenous art and culture.
| Medium | Works on paper |
| Signature | Signed |
| Frame | Framed |
| Condition | good |
| Seller | Gallery |
| Location | Victoria, Canada |
| Provenance | The Artist; Private Collection, Victoria; Mark Loria Gallery, Victoria, Canada. |
Kent Monkman is an interdisciplinary Cree visual artist known for his thought-provoking interventions into Western European and North American art history. Monkman’s work explores themes of colonization, sexuality, loss, and resilience—the complexities of historic and contemporary Indigenous experience through irony, parody, and camp humor. His paintings subvert mythologized visions of the North American West that excluded First Peoples or treated them as a dying people, whose culture was frozen in time. His works serve as a historical corrective to the settler narrative that imagined a future without a Native presence. His recurring character, Miss Chief, acts as an alter ego that challenges traditional gendered power dynamics and reintroduces sexual fluidity into a history of repression. In contrast to nineteenth-century depictions of Indigenous peoples as somehow diminished, Miss Chief is strong and confident. Importantly, her presence counteracts the erasure of Two Spirit people from colonial narratives.
Kent Monkman, a member of the Fisher River Cree First Nation of northern Manitoba, was born in 1965, the third of four children. Monkman’s own family experiences within the history of Canadian racism, colonization, Christianization, residential schooling, and language loss deeply informs his work. As he says, “I was fortunate enough to have parents and grandparents who were very confident in knowing who they were and who were confident in their own culture. They knew that you can exist in the modern world and still carry your roots and your culture with you.” Monkman’s engagement with his own biography as well as with history creates opportunities to confront colonial injustice, challenge received notions of history, advocate for social change, and honour the resistance and resilience of Indigenous peoples.
Monkman’s painting and installation works have been exhibited at institutions such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal; Musée d’artcontemporain de Montréal; The National Gallery of Canada; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art; Hayward Gallery; Witte de With Centre for Contemporary Art; Musée d’art Contemporain de Rochechouart; Maison Rouge; Philbrook Museum of Art; and Palais de Tokyo. He has created site-specific performances at The Metropolitan Museum of Art; The Royal Ontario Museum; Compton Verney, Warwickshire; and The Denver Art Museum. Monkman has had two nationally touring solo exhibitions, Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience (2017-2020), and The Triumph of Mischief (2007-2010). Monkman is the recipient of the Ontario Premier’s Award for Excellence in the Arts (2017), an honorary doctorate degree from OCAD University (2017), the Indspire Award (2014), and the Hnatyshyn Foundation Visual Arts Award (2014).
Monkman lives and works in Dish With One Spoon Territory (Toronto, Canada).
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