Zacharie Vincent’s Indigenous Legacy

Huron-Wendat artist Zacharie Vincent (1815–1886) decided to become a painter in the immediate aftermath of the defeat of French nationalists in the rebellion of Lower Canada in 1837. Over the course of his career he produced more than six hundred works, of which only around fifty are known to have survived: paintings, drawings, self-portraits, portraits, landscapes, and conventional genre scenes. Responding to depictions of Indigenous people by non-Indigenous artists, Vincent’s images overturned conventional ideas about Indigenous-colonial relations. For more on Zacharie Vincent read Louise Vigneault’s Zacharie Vincent Life & Work.

Louise Vigneault, professor of Art History at Université de Montréal, specializes in North American art. Her research focuses on the collective imaginary, mythologies, cultural constructions, and strategies for the representation of identity. Her publication Espace artistique et modèle pionnier: Tom Thomson et Jean-Paul Riopelle was awarded the Canada Prize in the Humanities and the Victor-Barbeau prize.