Allen Sapp
to
Canada House Gallery 201 Bear Street (PO Box 1570), Banff, Alberta T1L 1B5
Today, on the 91st anniversary of Allen Sapp's birthday, we are pleased to share a collection of vintage paintings by one of Canada's most revered Indigenous painters, Allen Sapp, RCA, OC. Self-taught, encouraged & mentored by Dr. Gonor, Allen Sapp's paintings capture life as he experienced it on the Red Pheasant Reserve near North Battleford, SK.
Allen Sapp RCA, OC b.1928 d. 2015
"...painting is a feeling, just like Indian music is a feeling" --Allen Sapp.
Allen Sapp was born on the Red Pheasant Reserve (33 km south of North Battleford, SK) to Alex and Agnes Sapp in 1928. A youth spent working the land and tending to his family's livestock form much of the subjects represented in his work. His artworks are imbued with feeling, a tenderness in places, a harshness in others. Preferring to work from memory than take studies en plein air, the scenes are represented not only through his mind's eye but through a lens of emotion.
The Sapp family was marred by ill health, notably his mother Agnes, and so was Allen himself. Though a sickly child, his grandmother Maggie Soonias (affectionately known as Nookum) was more than a nurse to her grandson, she was a guide and teacher. Allen would often spend time observing Nookum at work rather than play with the other children (as represented in Nookum Feeding Chickens). She also became the subject of many of Allen's studies, including this wonderful example below.
Allen was a prolific artist even as a child, sketching with charcoal and any mark making tools he could find, it was clear that he had talent and an enduring creative spirit. "Sometimes he would do little drawings, drawing all sorts. And my children, those others, did not do that, only him. Kiskayetum (He-perceives-it) was watching us, listening, fixing things with his hands, drawing pictures on wrapping paper" Alex Sapp speaking about his son.