I've created an environment that's like a laboratory for experimentation, and trial and error
Hear Kent Monkman talk about the atelier model for his studio, which includes members of his creative team and the painting specialists who work under his direction. Together they collaborate to bring works from a kernel of an idea, through the small pencil sketches, and the completion of a finished painting.
Duration: 8 min. 9 sec.
Directed by David Hartman
Les castors du roi (The King’s Beavers)
2011
Acrylic paint on canvas
Gift of the artist and W. Bruce C. Bailey in honour of Nathalie Bondil and the 150th anniversary of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 2011.401
Reproduction © and courtesy Kent Monkman
In this painting, Monkman slyly pokes fun at King Louis XV, an important character in the French colonization of North America well into the 1700s, who indulgently commissioned many paintings of French colonial exotic hunting scenes but excluded any examples of the North American fur trade which was central to the economy of New France. Here, Monkman focuses on amiskwak (beavers), who remain spiritually and ecologically important for many Indigenous nations. The mass culling of beavers for their pelts to meet European demand caused widespread ecological devastation. Monkman restores the centrality and significance of amiskwak in the Great Lakes region.
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.
