Two Spirits Soar: The Art of Allen Sapp, the Inspiration of Allan Gonor

Patricia Morley is a professor of English and Canadian Studies at
Concordia University, an associate fellow of the Simone de Beauvoir
Institute, and author of Margaret Laurence: The Long Journey Home.

Allen Sapp, who was born on a reserve near North Battleford in 1929, is
considered one of Canada’s foremost Native painters. Many of his
paintings record and celebrate the daily tasks and communal life of the
Plains Cree in the 1930s and 1940s. Like William Kurelek, who portrayed
Ukrainian-Canadian farmers in the West in the same period, Sapp evokes
the work and play of a people who live close to the land and to one
another.

Dr. Allan B. Gonor (1923–1985) of North Battleford was (with his
wife, Ruth) mentor and friend to the painter for a quarter-century.
Gonor recognized Sapp’s ability at an early stage, and encouraged him
to paint out of his Native background. The Gonor collection is now in
the Allen Sapp Gallery, which opened in North Battleford in 1989.

W.P. Kinsella, another Westerner, here explores similarities between
the painter’s background and his own. He was drawn to Sapp’s
paintings at first sight: “Just by looking at Allen’s paintings I
could smell the freshness of a spring thaw, hear the snow squeaking
underfoot, hear the bite of the ax felling a tree, smell the bitter odor
of bark and pine sap in the air.”

The relatively brief text touches on the life of all three men and the
factors that brought them together. The heart of the book consists of 80
fine color reproductions of narrative paintings vibrant with life and
color.