Allen Sapp, Kiskayetum Saposkum, was a Plains Cree/Nêhiyaw artist born in Red Pheasant Cree Nation, Saskatchewan on January 2nd, 1928. Early in his life, Sapp was left without his mother, Agnes Soonias, who suffered from tuberculosis and eventually died in the sanitarium in North Battleford. Sapp also lost four of his seven siblings to illnesses that swept the reserve. With his father having to go on extended hunting trips to provide for his family, Sapp’s maternal grandparents, Maggie and Albert Soonias, were left to care for him. They had been one of the first to move onto the reserve after the treaties were signed, but became one of the last to retain and teach the knowledge of the old Nehiyaw ways. Many Indigenous people had lost the Nehiyaw ways due to the assimilation efforts experienced at the residential schools. Although Sapp had attended a residential school for a short period of time, his grandparents played a significant role in teaching him Indigenous spirituality, the Cree language and the values of community, which were later instrumental in shaping Sapp’s artwork.

When Sapp was a child, he suffered from meningitis, often leaving him bedridden. Sapp was very sick due to this illness when his grandmother’s sister, Nootokao, had a dream where Sapp could possibly die. This encouraged her to grant a Cree name to Allen, calling him Kiskayetam which means, “he perceives it”. This was seemingly prophetic as Sapp, unable to play with the other children on the reserve due to his illness, became hyper-observant of his surroundings and the people in it. Not knowing how to read or write, the young Sapp would instead draw and paint what he saw.

When Sapp was a young adult with a wife and child, he moved to North Battleford, and sold his paintings door to door to support his family. He still could not read or write, so he took advantage of using what he already knew. The paintings he was trying to sell were a type he thought would be more appealing to the general public, including subjects such as landscapes, animals, and portraits. One of his customers happened to be Dr. Allan Gonor, who became a long-time friend and supporter. Gonor suggested that Sapp paint what he knew of his home, his family and life on the reserve. Sapp came to primarily access memories from his childhood in the 1930’s through the 1940’s, and painted scenes involving family and neighbours engaged in work activities on the reserve such as tending to the animals, hunting and gathering food and water, fixing the house, washing clothes and preparing meals. He also painted social gatherings such as sharing a meal, playing games, meeting to talk, and especially community celebrations such as powwows. However, also evident in his paintings are the necessity of hard work and struggle in order to survive. This was a period consisting of a market crash, the spread of illnesses, a long period of drought and widespread starvation. These challenges proved more difficult on the Red Pheasant Reservation because of the departure of family members to residential schools, substantial government enforced restrictions and an agronomical lifestyle to which Indigenous people had to adapt. Despite this, Sapp is able to tell convincingly the stories of his people through his paintings, conveying the social and spiritual values of a community born of struggle and hard work. Sapp said of this: "I can't write a story or tell one in the white man's language so I tell what I want to say with my paintings … I put it down so it doesn't get lost and people will be able to see and remember."

Sapp passed away at the age of 87 on December 29, 2015 leaving a prodigious body of work that serves to preserve the images of his Indigenous culture and support its renewal, while providing people from other cultures a vehicle to understand the Indigenous way of life. His contributions to his province and country were recognized in 1985 with being awarded The Saskatchewan Order of Merit, and being elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. In 1986 he was recognized as one of the Senior Native Artists in Canada when he was included in the exhibition “New Beginnings” Native Art Show in Toronto, the largest exhibition of Native art in Canadian history, that gathered together artists such as Daphne Odjig, Kenojuak Ashevak, Norval Morrisseau, Bill Reid and Alex Janvier. In 1981 he was the subject of the popular bestselling book “A Cree Life The: The Art of Allen Sapp.'' In 1989, The Allen Sapp Art Gallery was created in North Battleford to house The Gonor Collection and is dedicated to the art of Allen Sapp.