The Art of Inuit Women: Anonymous No More
Undoubtedly, there are those who would think it an unwarranted leap to treat the growing cadre of celebrated Inuit women artists as a gendered category, preferring, instead, to view them simply as exceptionally talented individuals. It does seem, however, that work from this increasingly visible cohort flows from a shared history, which provides both subject matter and possibility. Certainly, there are commonalities to be found; for instance, the fact that women tend to excel in graphic arts, which means, among other things, that they do not have to go out on the land to quarry stone.
In the early days, women and children were often anonymous “studio assistants,” helping the male of the household to finish and polish his work. Even when they did produce work of their own, it was not unusual to attribute it to the male — not as an expression of chauvinism, but rather as a practical arrangement. The making of objects for trade was just another instance of family labour, the objective being survival, not artistic reputation, and nobody cared too much who got the credit.
Although it is a common misconception, pre-contact Inuit relations were not, in the words of Robin McGrath, “strictly male-dominated” (McGrath 1993:22). She inferred the nature of gender relations from myths, which sometimes depict males as dominant, but at other times as subservient. Such gender specific work as sewing or hunting might, at certain times, have given one gender or the other the advantage, but eventually the balance shifted. As long as women relied upon men to bring home the pelts, and as long as men counted upon women to make the pelts into clothes, cooperation and an attitude of mutual respect prevailed.
As happened in many areas of life, however, contact with foreign social systems resulted in the adoption of new practices and attitudes. As the export of artwork developed into an important industry in small northern communities, the identity of the artist became important. The work from certain communities and individuals was valued over that of others and, in the never-ending quest for originality, the work of women began to attract new attention from curators, dealers, and collectors. We have witnessed, over the past few decades, several exhibitions of women’s work, and there are at least a handful of scholars focussing on work done by women.
Inuit women artists attracting attention in the press
The names of successful Inuit women artists are sprinkled throughout many issues of Inuit Art Quarterly (IAQ): Marion Tuu’luq was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Alberta (IAQ 1990:41); Oviloo Tunnillie was heralded by author Peter Millard for bringing “a more complicated, and, alas, more troubled perspective to Inuit art long known for its iconic representation of mother and child” (Millard 1994:25); the work of Sheojuk Etidlooie, who died in May 1999, was featured at Feheley Fine Arts in Toronto and the Winnipeg Art Gallery (IAQ 2000:61); and Annie Pootoogook was the first Inuit artist finalist for the Sobey Arts Awards (IAQ 2006:37).
The paucity of feature articles focussing on women artists is a reflection of the research interests of that small group of academics working in the field of Inuit studies, a marginalized specialty in art history faculties The first major article in IAQ to highlight the work of women artists in general was Janet Berlo’s “The Power of the Pencil,” in which she drew attention to the “unparalleled level of participation and acclaim in the graphic arts” that Inuit women have achieved, compared not only with other indigenous women, but also relative to European and North American women artists (Berlo 1990:17–26). Berlo referred specifically to Ashoona Pitseolak, Kenojuak Ashevak, and Jessie Oonark, all of whom were elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts and awarded the Order of Canada. She also quoted photojournalist John Reeves, who had remarked in 1985 that, in Cape Dorset at least, “the pencil had become as potent an instrument for survival as the spear had been,” with the consequence that “widows no longer had to remarry a successful hunter to have food on the table” (ibid., 26).
One of the few IAQ features focussing on a woman graphic artist was a profile on Janet Kigusiuq Uqayuittuq by Kyra Vladykov Fisher, a long-time northern arts advisor. Kigusiuq, says Fisher, “turned the landscape into abstracted geomorphic shapes” (Fisher 2007:15). More recently, “Inuit Art and the Limits of Authenticity,” by Deborah Root, a reprint from an exhibition catalogue, appeared in IAQ (Root 2008:18–26).
A growing focus on the work of Inuit women artists
While feature articles — which typically include some original research and analysis — may be rare with reference to female artists, IAQ has published a number of reviews of exhibitions of women’s work. One of the more interesting of these reviews was “Three Women, Three Generations: Drawings by Pitseolak Ashoona, Napachie Pootoogook, and Shuvinai Ashoona” (Speak 2000:40–41), an exhibition curated by Jean Blodgett for the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Ontario in 1999. IAQ reviewer Dorothy Speak drew special attention to the unique work of Suvinai, a reclusive woman in her thirties. Suvinai’s work, along with that of Janet Kigusiuq, Victoria Mamnguqsualuk, and Annie Pootoogook, was also referred to in a short article entitled “Breaking New Ground,” by IAQ Assistant Editor James Sinclair (Sinclair 2004:58).
In a category by itself, Isumavut: The Artistic Expression of Nine Cape Dorset Women succeeded in promoting the work of some of Cape Dorset’s outstanding female producers as well as involving them as collaborators, almost co-curators. The eight living artists were invited to choose the work they wanted exhibited, and their essays and comments were published in an accompanying book.
While collaboration with living artists is now commonplace in the mainstream art world, the Isumavut exhibition, which was a departure for Inuit art curators, sparked some controversy. Janet Berlo dealt with both the exhibition and the controversy in a review essay entitled “An Exhibition, a Book, and an Exaggerated Reaction” (Berlo 1995:26).
A landmark for Inuit women’s art was a solo exhibition of wall hangings by Marion Tuu’luq, organized by the National Gallery of Canada in 2002. Curated by Marie Bouchard and Marie Routledge, the 37 works in the exhibition presented Tuu’luq’s singular artistic perspective based on her experiences as a 20th-century Inuk, woman, wife, mother, and artist living in the Canadian Arctic.
Tuu’luq’s wall hangings also reveal a willingness to engage the collective cultural experiences of contemporary Inuit (Bouchard 2003:34). Interestingly, Inuit women tended, for many years, to be identified with inlay skin work; in order to be marketable, however, the hides needed to be tanned. Transporting small quantities of animal skins out of the community and back again was not practical, and the toxic chemicals used in home tanning were worrisome. Consequently, inlay skin work was a limited activity that eventually gave way to fabric tapestry making, a rather conventional feminine art (see “Artists, Weavers, Movers, and Shakers,” [Goldfarb 1989:14]).
An exhibition entitled Nuvisavik: The Place Where We Weave, was co-curated by Maria von Finckenstein, Deborah Hickman, and July Papatsie for the Canadian Museum of Civilization in 2002. Numerous individual exhibitions of women’s work have been held in commercial galleries. Oviloo Tunnillie, for instance, has been much celebrated by the Marion Scott Gallery in Vancouver, and, most recently, the work of Annie Pootoogook has been attracting attention across North America. Promoted in several exhibitions at Feheley Fine Arts in Toronto, Pootoogook’s work has also been shown at that city’s mainstream Power Plant Gallery (Webb 2006:30–33). Drawing subjects from the world she knows, Pootoogook beguiles us with her detailed and naive renditions of such aspects of northern reality as breaking liquor bottles and watching the war in Iraq on TV. This is not the subject matter we are used to seeing from Inuit artists. In fact, in spite of common wisdom that maintains that the market wants scenes from “traditional” life (by which is meant the lifestyle at the point of contact in the mid- 20th century), it seems that we are, in fact, hungry for the Inuit take on contemporary reality.
Some Inuit women are also using their art to provide poignant retrospective commentary. The more recent work of Napachie Pootoogook falls into this category. As author Leslie Boyd Ryan points out, Napachie “is unflinching in her depictions of family violence and has no qualms about acknowledging the crueller aspects of the traditional camp system” (Ryan 2005:9–16). She shows men fighting each other and people giving up prized personal possessions at the behest of missionaries, as well as the horror of arranged marriages (ibid., 11). Boyd writes that Napachie Pootoogook’s generation “was the last to submit to arranged marriages, and she is one of only a few Inuit women to speak candidly of the practice and its effect on women’s life” (ibid., 12). Apparently, Napachie “undertook this body of work late in her life for many reasons, not the least of which was that it hadn’t been done before” (ibid., 15–16). She “wanted,” she said, “to set the record straight” (ibid.).
Inuit women are shaping history
Not only are Inuit women setting the record straight, they are also shaping history, providing political and social leadership. There was a time when, in the words of Marika Morris, Inuit women in the arts were identified with sewing (Morris 2002:16). The contemporary woman has carried this skill to new heights and in new directions. Some women excel in creating two-dimensional images in fabric on paper, while others have turned their talents to fashion design and the development of clothing businesses and to quote Morris’s article:
Inuit women have been ahead of Canadian women as a whole and other Aboriginal women in terms of leadership. There have been numerous women leaders of the largest Inuit political organizations — the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, and the Inuit Circumpolar Conference — such as Rosemarie Kuptana, Sheila Watt-Cloutier, Mary Simon, and Mary Sillett. There has also been a long-serving woman leader of the Government of the Northwest Territories — Nellie Cournoyea. By contrast, the Assembly of First Nations has never had a female Grand Chief, and Canada had only one — very short lived — woman Prime Minister, Kim Campbell, who held office for only a few months and was, in fact, never elected to that role (ibid., 16).
Marybelle Mitchell, editor-in-chief of Inuit Art Quarterly
May 2011
References
Auger, Emily
1999 (Winter) “Inuit Women Artists and Western Aesthetics”
Berlo, Janet
1995 (Fall) “Drawing & Printmaking at Holman”
1995 (Spring) “An Exhibition, a Book, and an Exaggerated Reaction”
1993 (Winter) “Autobiographical Impulses and Female Identity in the Drawings of Napachie Pootoogook”
1990 (Winter) “The Power of the Pencil: Inuit Women in the Graphic Arts”
Craig, Mary
1996 (Winter) “Cape Dorset Prints: 1969”
Dyck, Sandra
2009 (Winter) “Shuvinai Ashoona: Drawings”
Feheley, Patricia
2002 (Spring) “Mayureak Ashoona”
Fisher, Kyra Vladykov
2007 (Fall) “Janet Kigusiuq Uqayuittuq”
Fox, Matthew
1998 (Spring) “Women Helping Each Other: The Artists: Rhoda Karetak”
Goldfarb, Beverly
1989 (Spring) “Artists, Weaver, Movers, and Shakers”
Gunderson, Sonia
2009 (Summer) “Arnait Video Productions: Women Telling Their Own Stories”
2009 (Spring) “Before Tomorrow”
Inukpuk-Iqaluk, Martha
1996 (Winter) “Elisapee Inukpuk: ‘I enjoy dollmaking immensely’”
Kardosh, Robert
2009 (Fall) “Transcending the Particular: Feminist Vision in the Sculpture of Oviloo Tunnillie”
Kunnik, Simeonie
1993 (Winter) “John Kavik’s Son, Thomas Ugjuk, Speaks about His Father and Himself”
Lalonde, Christine
1995 (Fall) “Mary Okeena: Graphic Artist”
McGrath, Robin
1993 (Winter) “More than Meets the Eye: The Clothing Motif in Inuit Legends and Art: The Male/Female Relationship”
McNeal, Joanne
1996 (Winter) “Elsie Klengenberg: ‘I Like to Draw People, Animals, and Little Kids’: Teaching the Next Generation”
Millard, Peter
1994 (Winter) “Meditations on Womanhood: Ovilu Tunnillie”
Morris, Marika
2002 (Winter) “Pauktuutit Inuit Women’s Association”
Root, Deborah
2008 (Summer) “Inuit Art and the Limits of Authenticity”
Ryan, Leslie Boyd
2005 (Fall) “Mannaruluujujuq (Not So Long Ago): The Memories of Napachie Pootoogook”
Sinclair, James
2004 (Fall/Winter) “Breaking New Ground: The Graphic Work of Shuvinai Ashoona, Janet Kigusiuq, Victoria Mamnguqsualuk, and Annie Pootoogook”
Speak, Dorothy
2008 (Summer) “Kenojuak Ashevak: On the Occasion of Kenojuak Ashevak’s Receiving of the Governor General’s Award”
2000 (Fall) “Three Women, Three Generations: Drawings by Pitseolak Ashoona, Napatchie Pootoogook, and Shuvinai Ashoona”
Webb, Marshall
2006 (Winter) “Annie Pootoogook”
Wight, Darlene Coward
2001 (Summer) “Holman: Forty Years of Graphic Art”
Inuit Art Quarterly
2001 (Spring) “Revisiting Nunavik Printmaking: Meet the Artists: Victoria Grey, Kuujjuaq”
2000 (Summer) “At the Galleries”
Selected references from Inuit Art Quarterly (IAQ)
Editorials
Features
1990, The Power of the Pencil: Inuit Women in the Graphic Arts, vol. 5, no. 1 (winter):16, by Janet Catherine Berlo 3.58 Mb - 1993, "The Male/Female Relationship" in More than Meets the Eye: The Clothing Motif in Inuit Legends and Art, vol. 8, no. 4 (winter):22-23, by Robin McGrath 2.43 Mb
- 1993, Autobiographical Impulses and Female Identity in the Drawings of Napachie Pootoogook, vol. 8, no. 4(winter):4-12, by Janet Catherine Berlo 1.08 Mb
- 1995, "Helen Kalvak (1901-1984) Undisputed Artistic Royalty" in Drawing & Printmaking at Holman, vol. 10, no. 3 (fall):24-25, by Janet Catherine Berlo 906.36 Kb
- 1995, "Agnes Nanogak (1925-): A Great Story-teller" in Drawing & Printmaking at Holman, vol. 10, no. 3 (fall):25, by Janet Catherine Berlo 2.03 Mb
- 1995, Mary Okeena: Graphic Artist, vol. 10, no. 3 (fall):34, by Christine Lalonde 1.50 Mb
- 1996, Elisapee Inukpuk: "I enjoy dollmaking immensely", vol. 11, no. 4 (winter):10, by Martha Inukpuk-Iqaluk 2.21 Mb
- 1996, Cape Dorset Prints: 1969, vol. 11, no. 4 (winter):54, by Mary Craig 2.98 Mb
- 1996, "Teaching the Next Generation" in Elsie Klengenberg: "I like to draw people, animals, and little kids", vol. 11, no. 4 (winter):19, by Joanne McNeal 434.37 Kb
- 1998, "Rhoda Karetak" in Women Helping Each Other: The Artists, vol. 13, no. 1 (spring):15, by Mathew Fox 261.47 Kb
- 1999, Inuit Women Artists and Western Aesthetics, vol. 14, no. 4 (winter):4, by Emily Auger 3.02 Mb
- 2001, "Meet the Artists: Victoria Grey, Kuujjuaq" in Revisiting Nunavik Printmaking, vol. 16, no. 1 (spring):13 546.57 Kb
- 2002, Mayureak Ashoona, vol. 17, no. 1 (spring):14, by Patricia Feheley 2.07 Mb
- 2002, Pauktuutit Inuit Women's Association, vol. 17, no. 4 (winter):16, by Marika Morris 1.56 Mb
- 2004, Breaking New Ground: The Graphic Work of Shuvinai Ashoona, Janet Kigusiuq, Victoria Mamnguqsualuk, and Annie Pootoogook, vol. 19, no. 3&4 (fall/winter):58, by James Sinclair Bytes
- 2005, "Mannaruluujujuq (Not So Long Ago): The Memories of Napachie Pootoogook, vol. 20, no. 3 (fall):9, by Leslie Boyd Ryan 5.42 Mb
- 2007, Janet Kigusiuq Uqayuittuq, vol. 22, no. 3 (fall):8, by Kyra Vladykov Fisher 3.48 Mb
Interviews
Reviews
- 1994, Meditations on Womanhood: Ovilu Tunnillie, vol. 9, no. 4 (winter):20, by Peter Millard 2.19 Mb
- 2001, Holman: Forty Years of Graphic Art, vol. 16, no. 2 (summer):42, by Darlene Coward Wight 746.93 Kb
- 2006, Annie Pootoogook, vol. 21, no. 4 (winter):30, by Marshall Webb 1.31 Mb
News Items
- 1990, Marion Tuu'luq Receives Honorary Degree, vol. 5, no. 3 (summer):41 782.00 Kb
- 1994, Celebrating Women's Work, vol. 9, no. 1 (spring):44 5.29 Mb
- 1994, Isumavut: The Artistic Expression of Nine Cape Dorset Women, vol. 9, no. 4 (winter):55 238.63 Kb
- 1998, Congratulations to the Winners, vol. 13, no. 1 (spring):53 151.50 Kb
- 2001, Marion Tuu'luq, vol. 16, no. 3 (fall):58 145.45 Kb
- 2006, Annie Pootoogook Finalist for Sobey Award, vol. 21, no. 2 (summer):37 432.01 Kb