Robert Houle: Red is Beautiful is on view now. Take a closer look at Houle’s Mohawk Summer, four banners inspired by a historic moment in the struggle for First Nation’s sovereignty.

For over 50 years, Anishnabe Saulteaux contemporary artist Robert Houle has been trailblazing. Since the Canadian Museum of History’s 1970 acquisition of his painting Red Is Beautiful, Houle’s influential work as an artist, curator, writer and educator has profoundly impacted the world of contemporary First Nations art in Canada – and globally. 

On view now, the AGO exhibition Robert Houle: Red is Beautiful surveys five decades of the artist’s monumental career and includes more than 90 large installations, paintings and drawings. Friday, December 3, 2021 – live from the AGO’s Baillie Court (and online) – was the kickoff of aabaakwad 2021, the third annual international gathering of Indigenous artists, curators and thinkers. This year, aabaakwad welcomed Robert Houle to deliver an opening keynote address, followed by a panel discussion with artists Faye HeavyShield and Barry Ace. 

Mohawk Summer (1990) is a large-scale work by Robert Houle consisting of four vibrantly coloured cloth banners, each showcasing a word directly related to a historic standoff between the Mohawk nation of Kanehsatà:ke and the Quebec provincial police in 1990. As part of Red is Beautiful, a re-creation of Mohawk Summer – done by Houle in 2010 – will be hung in Maxine Granovsky & Ira Gluskin Hall at the AGO. These grand and majestic banners will greet visitors when they first enter the Gallery, prepping them for the landmark exhibition.      

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