Paul Kane

Canada · 1810–1871

Paul Kane 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. 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. 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 (present day Victoria, British Columbia).