Kane, Paul

Kane, Paul, 1810–71, Canadian painter, b. Ireland. Kane went to Toronto as a child. He studied art in the United States (1836–41) and in Europe (1841–45). After his return to Canada (1845) he made an extended journey into the Hudson's Bay Company territories of W Canada, traveling by snowshoe, horseback, and canoe to paint the Native Americans of the region. He returned to E Canada in 1848. Most of the paintings resulting from his journey are in the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, and in the Parliament buildings, Ottawa. His account of his journey appeared as Wanderings of an Artist among the Indians of North America (1859; new ed. with title Paul Kane's Frontier, incl. biography and catalog by J. R. Harper, 1971).

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Kane, Paul

(born Sept. 3, 1810, Mallow, Ire.—died Feb. 20, 1871, Toronto, Ont., Can.) Irish-born Canadian painter. His family immigrated to Canada in 1819. He worked mainly in Toronto but traveled as far as the Pacific coast depicting landscapes, Native American subjects, fur traders, and missionaries; he published an account of his adventures in Wanderings of an Artist (1859). Half of his paintings are portraits, works of great historical value in which he recorded the dress and ornaments of his subjects in accurate detail. He excelled at composing large figurative groups in a style similar to contemporary European genre painting.