Inuit Art Boxed Notecards

Kenojuak Ashevak is contemporary Inuit art’s most well-known artist. She grew up traveling between hunting camps on Baffin Island and northern Quebec. In the late 1950s, Kenojuak met James Houston, a federal administrator who was encouraging the Inuit of Cape Dorset to make carvings, drawings, and prints to be sold to southern Canada and abroad. He encouraged Kenojuak to create sealskin appliqu? designs. The bold outlines and simple forms of her appliqu? work were well suited for the prints being created by the newly established West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative. Her drawings were among the first by an Inuk woman to be made into prints.

Lucy Qinnuayuak, who was also encouraged by James Houston, was a prolific graphic artist who is best known for her fanciful arctic bird images. She lived a traditional way of life until the early 1960s, when she moved to Cape Dorset. Her drawings were turned into prints from 1961 until 1983.

Pitaloosie Saila spent her childhood years in various hospitals in Quebec and Ontario for treatment of tuberculosis. Her work has been included in annual Cape Dorset collections since 1968 and has been featured in many solo drawing exhibitions. In 1977 Canada Post issued a stamp based on her print Fisherman’s Dream.

Published with the Art Gallery of Ontario.