Date Published:
January 2005

L’Encyclopédie de l’histoire du Québec / The Quebec History Encyclopedia

Paul Kane

Kane, Paul (1810-1871), painter, was born in Mallow, county Cork, Ireland, on September 3, 1810, the son of Michael Kane, a discharged soldier. He came to Canada with his family in 1818 or 1819, and settled in York (Toronto), where his father opened a wine and spirit shop. He was educated at the Home District Grammar School, and was for a time employed in a furniture factory. In 1836 he went to the United States, and in 1841 to France and Italy, as an art student. He returned to Canada in 1845, and devoted himself to depicting the life of the Indians of the North West. He travelled many thousands of miles in canoe, on horseback, or on snowshoe, in order to study his subject; and the result was a series of pictures which had both artistic and historical value. Most of his pictures are now in the Royal Ontario Museum at Toronto or in the Parliament Buildings at Ottawa. He published an account of his travels in the North West under the title Wanderings of an artist among the Indians of North America (London, 1859). He died at Toronto on February 20, 1871. See L. J. Burpee (ed.), Paul Kane's Wanderings (Toronto, 1926), and D. Wilson, Paul Kane (Canadian journal, 1871).

Source : W. Stewart WALLACE, ed., The Encyclopedia of Canada, Vol. III, Toronto, University Associates of Canada, 1948, 396p., p. 321.