Provenance: Coeur d’Alene Art Auction, Reno, NV, 2013 Private collection, New York Although he was primarily known for his Navajo scenes in canyons, Gerard Curtis Delano painted numerous works of figures in canoes. These range from warriors paddling into unseen danger to, as seen here, fur traders with their Indigenous escorts. Delano didn’t always name the tribes in these paintings, but they varied from Menominee and Ojibwe in the Great Lakes region to tribes on the Northwest Coast. Here, in Fur Traders, one possible tribe pictured is the Ojibwe people based on the style of birchbark canoe. The painting, one of the largest and most magnificent of Delano’s canoe works, is split horizontally down the middle as the image is repeated in the water’s reflection. This dual image allowed the artist to abstract and distort the figures, creating a unique interplay between the top and bottom of the painting. Adding to the surreal tone of the painting are the glass-like surface of the water and the misty fog that hangs in the background, which give the painting an almost dreamlike quality as the canoe and its reflection hang within Delano’s light paint.