Paul Kane

Canadian painter

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Born:: Sept. 3, 1810, Mallow, Ire.

Died:: Feb. 20, 1871, Toronto, Ont., Can. (aged 60)

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Paul Kane (born Sept. 3, 1810, Mallow, Ire.—died Feb. 20, 1871, Toronto, Ont., Can.) was an 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.

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