Oil painting landscape depicting a man on horseback in traditional indigenous regalia overlooking an approaching wagon train in a valley bottom. Signed bottom left "Two Gun" below 2 stick form rifles. Framed oil on masonite.

Percy “Two Gun” Plain Woman was born in 1895 and raised on the Kainai Reserve. With a grade seven education, he left residential school to take up life as a cow puncher. He soon became an expert rider and bronc buster and rodeoed throughout the West.

Two Gun was nearly 50 before he began to take a serious interest in art. As a middle-aged man, he took a few lessons at the Banff School of Fine Arts and painted traditional designs on lodges prior to his later portraiture practice. His depictions of traditional native life and portraits of important Kainai and Blackfoot individuals became well known in southern Alberta and Montana. Two Gun was commissioned to paint a history of the Blackfoot tribes on the lobby walls of the Prince of Wales Hotel in Waterton Lakes National Park. He first sold his paintings to a local restaurant for $5.00, but as he became known, demand for his works increased. It was only in the later years of his life that he made a living off his art.

During the 1950s, Two Gun contracted tuberculosis and was a patient at Charles Camsell Hospital in Edmonton for four years. He died at age 66 in Cardston Hospital. He used the symbol of two crossed or parallel rifles to accompany his signature in many cases, as the name “Two Gun” was handed down by an uncle, Chief Eaglechild. His nephew was Gerald Tailfeathers, also a well-known Canadian Indigenous artist.

This painting can be used for language arts, art, or Indigenous history. It could be used as a visual prompt for a descriptive writing assignment or a short story. It could be used to prompt a discussion about painting, sparking reflection on depiction, composition, and expression. It could also be used to explore the contributions of our Blackfoot community.

Note: This is a Collections artifact, not an Archives item. Access is available only to the photograph, not the actual item.