The Allen Sapp Gallery/Gonor Collection is launching a reproduction of one of Sapp’s prints from 1971.
On July 4, the Red Pheasant Cree Nation is doing the repatriation of the Red Pheasant treaty medal from the Manitoba Museum as part of their Treaty Day festivities.
Red Pheasant Chief Clint Wuttunee was one of those who reached out to the Allen Sapp Gallery about doing a collaboration on a display for that occasion. The image being reproduced is Sapp’s work called Pow Wow in the Battlefords. According to Galleries Manager Leah Garven, who spoke at council Monday, the print “is very recognizable to those who grew up in the Battlefords. In the sixties and seventies, people remember seeing the teepees in that area.”
It will be available for purchase at the Allen Sapp Gallery. The gallery thought now was an appropriate time to do this reproduction, given the special occasion.
“We haven’t done a reproduction of Allen Sapp’s paintings for a while. We try to do it rather sparingly,” Garven said.
Garven said people were looking forward to bringing the Treaty Medal back to Saskatchewan. To have it come back “was pretty exciting,” Garven said.
According to Red Pheasant Communications, Treaty Medals were presented to chiefs at the time of Treaty signings and represents a commitment to uphold those treaties. The Treaty Medal worn by Chief Red Pheasant was stolen from his deceased body in 1885, taken by an Indian Agent who sold it to an English merchant who, in turn, sold it to the Hudson Bay Company, says the Red Pheasant Communications Facebook page. Around 1998 the Hudson Bay Company transferred the medal to the Manitoba Museum where it was displayed as a part of the “HBC Collection.”
