UND President Thomas F. Kane (Reproduction)

Isabel Pearl Snelgrove

Additional Information

The 1933 portrait of University of North Dakota President Thomas F. Kane was painted the year of his retirement by Isabel Snelgrove, who was hired a few years earlier to teach art at UND. Following President Frank McVey, who left in 1917 to become President at the University of Kentucky, Kane served as UND’s fifth President from 1918 to 1933. The story behind the Kane portrait is a mystery. It was found on campus by chance in a storage rack containing, among other things, free materials for students to recycle into art projects. It was rescued, repaired, and framed by UND Art Collections, which was established in 2005 to function as the University’s art museum.