The works in this section depict many of the harrowing, traumatic experiences of the attempted genocide of Indigenous peoples of North America. Monkman centers Indigenous matriarchal values and narrative sovereignty in truth-telling as a necessary step toward healing and recovery.
Indigenous languages, cultural practices, and intergenerational mentorship were banned through the Indian Act in Canada and the Indian Removal Act in the United States. Multiple generations of Indigenous children were, as recently as the 1970s, forcefully removed to internment boarding schools where wanton violence accompanied severe religious and supremacist instruction. The Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission, formed to create a historical record of these events, deemed the policy a form of cultural genocide. Monkman’s family members are survivors of this widespread policy.
Since the American Indian Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, many Indigenous peoples have successfully resisted containment policies, returning temporarily or permanently to ancestral lands and waters, and expressing Indigenous resurgence in renewed use of languages, artforms, and ecologies.
The Scream
2017
Acrylic paint on canvas
Denver Art Museum: Native Arts acquisition funds, purchased with and funds from Loren G. Lipson, MD, 2017.93
Reproduction © and courtesy Kent Monkman
Monkman collapses time and space to dramatically tell the history of more than 100 years of forced removal of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit children from their families and communities by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Roman Catholic, Anglican, Methodist, United, and Presbyterian churches. The experience of tens of thousands of Indigenous children within hundreds of residential schools in Canada and boarding schools in the US was shattering and horrific. The language loss, cultural isolation, mentorship disruption, intergenerational trauma, and more are still felt today.
The Deluge
2019
Acrylic paint on canvas
Private collection, Canada
Reproduction © and courtesy Kent Monkman
The Deluge speaks directly to those who have experienced the boarding school system and recognizes their pain. With the help of Ancestors, Miss Chief rescues Indigenous children from the allegorical flood of displacement by settler cultures and returns them to their families. It is a testament to true leadership of those who fought for the children’s return and continue the fight to uncover the true extent of the atrocities experienced and return the protection of children to the authority of Indigenous nations.
Intermediary Study for The Going Away Song
2024
Acrylic paint on canvas
Sobey Art Foundation
Reproduction © and courtesy Kent Monkman
On November 27, 1885, Indigenous children from the Battleford Industrial School were brought to witness the mass hangings of eight Cree and Assiniboine men who were sentenced to death for their acts of resistance. The executions were ordered by Canadian Prime Minister John A. Macdonald to show “the white man governs.”
One of those hanged, kâpapâmahchakwêw (Wandering Spirit), sang a song that day now called “The Going Away Song,” which was carried by his great-great-great granddaughter, the late Pauline Shirt (1943-2024).
Those hanged included:
- kapapamahchakwew (Wandering Spirit)
- papamakeesik (Round the Sky)
- kitahwahken (Miserable Man)
- manichoos (Bad Arrow)
- nahpase (Iron Body)
- apischiskoos (Little Bear)
- Itka (Crooked Leg)
- Waywahnitch (Man Without Blood)
To all those who were lost, to those who were broken, to those who never returned—there will always be empty spaces where you should have been. The unspeakable loss is forever wrapped around our hearts.
Compositional Study for The Sparrow
2022
Acrylic paint on canvas
From the collection of Brian A. Tschumper
Reproduction © and courtesy Kent Monkman
An Indigenous child reaches for a bird perched on a windowsill, just out of reach—as were the freedoms to move, think, speak, and be Indigenous. This work presents a stark and haunting representation of the cold loneliness of Indigenous children in boarding schools, yet it also honors the hope and resilience of those children, now Elders, who survived and became knowledge keepers. The Sparrow poignantly calls for truth-telling and repair far beyond the European drive to possess and hoard.
Medicine
For those who did come home, their lives, their families’ lives, their children’s and their grandchildren’s lives were changed forever. We lost so much.
The Healing-Informed Resources for Self-Care was developed by the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition for boarding school survivors and family members who may be experiencing trauma and need immediate and long-term care.
The Healing Voices Movement is a video project by the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition that captures the strength and resiliency of boarding school survivors.
The National Indian Boarding School Digital Archive provides access to records for survivors and descendants, as well as community voices and testimonies at healing session events.
The Oral History Project collects video interviews with boarding school survivors in a healing-informed way.
[Resources are available in English only]
Constellation of Knowledge
2022
Acrylic paint on canvas
Pierre Lassonde Collection
Reproduction © and courtesy Kent Monkman
In this scene, multiple generations of Ancestors gather in the spirit world. Miss Chief, holding a sacred eagle feather, reminds us of the time-bending, relational, and intergenerational nature of our connections within kinship constellations. Miss Chief offers this teaching: “Remember that you are of this world, of the stars, rocks, water, earth, and sky. You are also of many other worlds, worlds of expansiveness and beauty which you cannot imagine. You are the medicine you need.”
Miss Chief's Library
In 2022, Monkman temporarily turned a Victorian house in Picton, Ontario, into Château Miss Chief, a home and living museum for Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, complete with a library of her favorite books. While not a recreation of her library, this room embodies the spirit of it: a space designed for curious minds, reflective thoughts, and of course, entertainment. Stay awhile and browse through reference books, pen a postcard, converse with friends, and watch a short soap opera art film featuring Miss Chief herself.
After browsing the books, please return them to the shelf. Thank you!
My people, I will continue to love you and to lift you up … You need only to reach out.
Send a postcard to Miss Chief about your journey through this exhibition.
Share with her a thought or feeling that is surfacing for you.
Write to her about something interesting or new that you saw.
Tell her about a memory or experience that you recalled.
Share something you’re inspired to do next.
Deposit your postcard in the mail slot to your left when you are done.
Casualties of Modernity
2015
Duration: 14 min. 20 sec.
Follow celebrity artist and humanitarian Miss Chief as she visits a hospital to see ailing art-movement patients in various stages of treatment. Watch her encounter romance, tragedy, and triumph in this soap opera satire. Can you find the “patients” Miss Chief visits in Monkman’s paintings?
This poster, designed by Monkman for Art Toronto 2023, references the limiting of Indigenous sovereignty to reserve lands. iskonikan is a Cree word for “Indian reserve” that when translated literally means left-over land.
Please take only one per person.
This wallpaper was inspired by Monkman’s pictographic etchings for the series A Living Legend, that visually quote a series of etchings by Pablo Picasso. Reproductions of Monkman's etchings can be found near the windows in this room.
Miss Chief’s Wet Dream
2018
Acrylic paint on canvas
Collection of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia: Gift of Donald R. Sobey, Stellarton, Nova Scotia, 2019
Reproduction © and courtesy Kent Monkman
Miss Chief reclines asleep in a canoe surrounded by people from diverse Indigenous nations. Her dream plays out across the canvas: a vision of unresolved collisions of cultures. Monkman was inspired by a 1613 wampum treaty between the Rotinonshión:ni Confederacy and Dutch settlers, which visually represents ships, or parallel cultures, that remain independent. By evoking the tumultuous Romantic paintings of Théodore Géricault and Eugène Delacroix (which you can find in Miss Chief’s Library nearby), Monkman emphasizes the trauma, anguish, and violence those collisions created and that still reverberate.
Death of the Female
2014
Acrylic paint on canvas
Tia Collection, Santa Fe, NM
Reproduction © and courtesy Kent Monkman
For catalog contributor Adrienne Huard, an Anishinaabe art historian, educator, and performance artist, who lives in the urban area of Winnipeg, Manitoba, which this scene references, this unapologetic painting “recognizes these detrimental impacts of colonial violence and lends a voice to those who often go unheard. The naked Cubist female forms are scattered throughout the street, one lying on the curb, a couple of them in a brawl, others passively watching. This scene reflects the insidious layers of gendered violence that Indigenous women, girls, and Two-Spirit peoples perpetually face: they’ve been discarded, hypersexualized, and deemed lesser than.”
The Madhouse
2020
Acrylic paint on canvas
Collection of Nicholas and Nicole Beale
Reproduction © and courtesy Kent Monkman
The title of this work and related series speaks to the psychological impact of oppression and bodily violence experienced by many Indigenous people, such as overwhelming rates of incarceration, sexual assault, institutionalized education, and foster care.
Medicine
I saw something shift in their eyes and knew that they would serve their time and when they came out they would become teachers.
The Native American Rights Fund fights to protect Native American rights, resources, and lifeways through litigation, legal advocacy, and legal expertise.
The Native American Reentry Service supports Indigenous reintegration into tribal communities from incarceration, drawing on culture, traditions, and ceremony.
White Bison provides sobriety, recovery, addictions prevention, and wellness/Wellbriety learning resources to Indigenous communities nationwide.
First Nations Development Institute works to improve economic conditions for Native Americans through technical assistance and training, advocacy and policy, and direct financial grants.
Kent Monkman: History is Painted by the Victors is organized by the Denver Art Museum and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. It was developed with generous support from the D. R. Sobey Foundation, Terra Foundation for American Art, and Henry Luce Foundation, with additional support provided by the Birnbaum Social Discourse Project, The Christensen Fund, Walker Youngbird Foundation, Marilyn Carol and Robert Weaver, the donors to the Annual Fund Leadership Campaign, and the residents who support the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District (SCFD). Promotional support is provided by 5280 Magazine and CBS Colorado.
