Sovereign: Independent Voices

Kent Monkman, whose work is featured in Sovereign: Independent Voices, riffs off paintings by Albert Bierstadt like this one.

Albert Bierstadt, Estes Park, Longs Peak, 1877. Lent by the Denver Public Library, Western History Division.

This image is included on page 11 of the Sovereign: Independent Voices brochure.

Cochiti and Tesuque Pueblo figurines for sale, about 1878–81. Photo by Ben Wittick, courtesy Palace of the Governors Photo Archives (NMHM/DCA), 16293.

Thomas Eakins used the photograph at bottom, one of a series of posed studies featuring nude young men playing outdoor sports, to develop his painting The Swimming Hole. In a deliberate nod to Eakins, Kent Monkman arranges the figures in History is Painted by the Victors, at top, in a similar fashion. Note especially the figures at left in the painting.

Kent Monkman, History is Painted by the Victors, 2013. Photograph courtesy the artist. Thomas Eakins, photographer (American, 1844 - 1916). Eakins's Students at the The Swimming Hole, 1884, Albumen silver print. Image: 9.3 x 12.1 cm (3 11/16 x 4 13/16 in.) Mount: 10.8 x 16.5 cm (4 1/4 x 6 1/2 in.) The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.