Produced on the occasion of the exhibition History Is Painted by the Victors at the Akron Museum of Art, this giclée print highlights Kent Monkman’s signature technique and humour in an interpretation of his painting The Great Mystery (2024).

This work merges Cyrus Dallin’s sculpture Appeal to the Great Spirit (1908) and Mark Rothko’s painting Lilac and Orange over Ivory (1953) in a playful challenge to two different branches of Western art historical canon. Monkman links Rothko’s modern abstract desire to explore the subconscious and undefinable to the Cree concept of mamahtâwisiwin, which refers to a state of unknowingness, or a tapping into the great mystery. Monkman’s alter ego Miss Chief Eagle Testickle replaces Dallin’s central figure, her shrug flipping a colonial ode to the “vanishing race” into an ironic question mark.

Print is sold unframed. Framing shown is for display purposes only.

$750USD (Unframed)

2026
Archival Giclée Print on Epson Legacy Fibre Paper (Unframed)
Paper Size: 24 x 18 inches
Image Size: 20.5 x 16 inches
Edition of 100 + 5 APs

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