Featured Article
Yellowstone Art Museum
January 15, 2025
Kent Monkman: Death of Adonis opens at the Yellowstone Art Museum on January 9, 2026.
This new exhibition can be viewed in the museum’s THE ONE ARTWORK GALLERY —
Mildred Sandall Scott Gallery 3.
In this intimate installation, visitors are invited to slow down and spend time with a single
monumental work by Cree artist Kent Monkman. Death of Adonis reimagines and challenges
Albert Bierstadt’s 1888 painting The Last of the Buffalo, exposing the colonial narratives woven
into nineteenth-century representations of the North American landscape.
Bierstadt’s original painting, often read as a lament for a “vanishing” wilderness and its Indigenous inhabitants, conceals the true causes of the buffalo’s near-extinction and the displacement of Indigenous nations—settler expansion and resource exploitation. By linking the
dying buffalo to the supposed fate of Indigenous peoples, Bierstadt reinforced the myth of a “vanishing race.”
Designed as a space for contemplation and further exploration, this one-work gallery invites visitors to take a seat and spend time with a work that turns the tables on the settler gaze, reclaiming the visual language and viewpoint of centuries of colonial representation.
“Death of Adonis offers an entry point into the work of one of Canada’s most renowned artists, inviting visitors to look closely and consider how art history has been written — and who has been left out. By drawing on European painting styles, Monkman reclaims and re-writes these visual traditions to tell Indigenous stories, creating a powerful and accessible work that sparks conversation about the past while imagining new possibilities for the future.”
Lisa Ranallo, Senior Curator
Kent Monkman: Death of Adonis will be on display from January 9 – May 15, 2026.
The exhibition sponsors are Norma & Gary Buchanan, Bess Lovec, Yellowstone Law. Generous support for this project was provided by Art Bridges.
Related Programming
Thurs. Jan 22 | Slow Art Tour: Death of Adonis
Slow Art Tour: Death of Adonis
Thursday, January 22 // 10:30 AM
Enjoy the galleries at a slower pace. Join Jessica Kay Ogdin, YAM Executive Director, for a
conversation about Kent Monkman’s Death of Adonis. This discussion-based tour invites
participants to extend their time with a single work of art in a group setting. Death of Adonis, asks viewers to reconsider Albert Bierstadt’s 1888 painting The Last of the Buffalo, by reimagining the nineteenth-century representations of the North American landscape. This discussion-based tour welcomes participants to extend their time with a single work of art in a group setting.
Thurs. Jan 29, Feb 12 & 26, Mar 12 & 26 | Write-Along with Anne Holub
Kent Monkman Write-Alongs with Anne Holub
Thursdays, January 29; February 12 & 26; March 12 & 26; April 9 & 23, 2026 // 3:30 –
4:30 PM
Join 2024 YAM writer-in-residence, Anne Holub, as she returns to the museum to lead her
popular Write Along sessions. Starting in late January, Anne will lead sessions every 2 weeks on Thursdays. Write-Alongs will focus on the exhibit, Death of Adonis, by Kent Monkman. Learn more about this painting and spend some quality time putting your own impressions into words with Anne and other visitors.
Thurs. Apr 9 | Presentation by Sean Chandler: The Buffalo Treaty and the Return of the Buffalo
Presentation by Sean Chandler: The Buffalo Treaty and the Return of the Buffalo
Thursday, April 9, 2026 // Reception at 5 PM; Talk at 5:30 PM
The Buffalo Treaty is a contemporary, intertribal agreement first signed in 2014 by Indigenous Nations in what is now the United States and Canada. It affirms a shared commitment to the protection, restoration, and free movement of buffalo across Indigenous territories and international borders. Grounded in longstanding cultural, spiritual, and political relationships with the buffalo, the Treaty asserts Indigenous sovereignty, cross-border cooperation, and Indigenous-led stewardship as essential to ecological and cultural renewal.