History Is Painted by the Victors
Step into the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) and you are immediately immersed in a world where history is retold through the eyes of those it has often overlooked. History Is Painted by the Victors marks the Canadian premiere of Kent Monkman’s largest exhibition to date, bringing together nearly 40 monumental paintings. On view from September 27, 2025, to March 8, 2026, the show invites visitors to reconsider the stories we have inherited about this country’s past.
Acrylic on canvas, 28” x 20”.
Kent Monkman, a member of ocêkwi sîpiy (Fisher River Cree Nation), lives and works between Toronto and New York. A painter, filmmaker, and storyteller, he has gained international recognition for blending humour, beauty, and critique to address Canada’s colonial legacy. His work often features Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, his bold, time-travelling alter ego, through whom Monkman explores not only Indigenous histories but also queer identity. Miss Chief flips the script on centuries of art that celebrated conquest and power, reclaiming space within classical traditions that once erased both Indigenous and queer presences.
Acrylic on canvas, 144” x 288”.
at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
The exhibition impresses both for its scale and the strength of its storytelling. Each canvas is rich in symbolism, layered with historical and contemporary references that draw you in and invite you to look more closely. The series centres Indigenous and queer perspectives, rewriting art history from within the grand European tradition that once excluded them. Every painting bursts with movement and emotion, turning the canvas into a stage where the past is vividly reimagined.
The Going Away Song presents a scene that is both quiet and overwhelming. A group of Indigenous children stand in rows before three Mounties and several nuns. Dressed alike in blue uniforms, the children face the figures who have come to take them from their families. This moment represents the beginning of life in residential schools, institutions where thousands of Indigenous children in Canada were separated from their homes and forced to abandon their languages and traditions. Monkman renders this painful history in a way that is both beautiful and devastating. The bright green hills and blue sky feel peaceful, yet the scene they frame is full of sorrow. By using the grand, detailed style once reserved for glorifying colonial power, Monkman gives a voice to those whose stories were ignored for generations.
Beyond their beauty, these paintings speak urgently to the present. Monkman’s narratives connect the past to ongoing conversations about representation, reconciliation, and belonging. Issues such as climate change, migration, and systemic inequities resonate throughout his visual world, making it clear that rewriting history is not just about looking back, but about reimagining how we move forward.
Acrylic on canvas, 84” x 126”.
Monkman’s work reminds us that history is never a single story. By centering voices too often overlooked, celebrating Indigenous resilience, and questioning dominant narratives, these paintings invite viewers to see both the past and the present differently.
Rather than closing the conversation, Monkman’s paintings open it wider. They encourage us to look more closely at the stories around us and to consider whose voices are carried forward. A visit to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts presents an opportunity to ponder these questions and encounter works that linger with you long after you leave.
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