Artwork:
Pitseolak Ashoona. Joyous at the Hunt. Stonecut stencil on paper, 21/50. 1980.
This Cape Dorset print, likely from the 1960s–70s printmaking studio system carries all the hallmarks of Pitseolak Ashoona’s distinctive graphic language: a flattened, almost heraldic arrangement of figures suspended against a bare, textured paper ground, with no horizon line to anchor them in conventional space. A hooded figure, rendered with her characteristic warmth and wit stands at the center brandishing what appear to be two small blades, framed symmetrically by two elongated, dog-like or seal-like creatures with lolling tongues and dangling cords, while a fantastical long-necked bird with a jade-green head and rust-colored body arcs protectively overhead, its own dangling cords echoing the those below.
The palette is restrained and confident—ochre, slate grey, brown, and that single vivid green—applied in flat, unmodulated planes that owe as much to the stonecut and stencil techniques of the Kinngait studios as to Pitseolak’s own instinct for pattern and silhouette. The composition reads less as a literal scene than as a kind of visual storytelling drawn from Inuit oral tradition and lived experience on the land: human and animal figures interlock in a single continuous rhythm, treated with equal graphic weight, suggesting an intimacy between the hunter, the hunted, and the spirit-world creatures that populate her prints. It’s a lively, almost jubilant image, and typical of the way Pitseolak transformed memory and myth into the bold, immediately legible forms that helped define Cape Dorset printmaking on the international stage.
Artist:
1904-1983 → Pitseolak Ashoona was one of the first Inuit artists to draw for the Cape Dorset print studio, and over two decades she became its most prolific figure, producing between 7,000 and 9,000 drawings, roughly 250 of which were made into prints. She came to art somewhat by accident: after two years sewing and embroidering parkas and mittens for the West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative, she saw the drawings and prints of her cousin Kiakshuk and decided to try drawing herself, initially to earn a little extra money.
Self-taught, she worked freehand, sketching an outline first and then filling it in with rapid, energetic line work, a technique that became a hallmark of her style. She moved from graphite pencil to coloured pencil and felt-tip pen, favoring the latter for the vibrancy that suited what scholars have called the “joyfulness” running through her imagery, and she also experimented, with less enthusiasm, in copper engraving and lithography; in 1975 an arts grant led her to take up acrylic on canvas as well.
Her subject matter drew on two intertwined threads: the everyday textures of pre-contact Inuit life — hunting camps, sewing, travel by dog team and umiaq — and the legends and spirit-beings of Inuit tradition, such as the sea goddess Taleelayu, rendered with an inventive, sometimes otherworldly imagination.
Formally, she is credited with adapting devices from her years as a seamstress, particularly mirroring motifs and dividing the picture surface into registers, into her compositions. Though her own life had been marked by considerable hardship, she said her intention was to preserve “the things we did long ago before there were many white men,” and her drawings are notable for favoring good memories over depictions of suffering.
Born on Tujajuak (Nottingham Island) to Timungiak and Ottochie, Pitseolak grew up in a traditional, land-based Inuit life, and around 1922–23 she married the hunter Ashoona, with whom she had seventeen children, six of whom she raised to adulthood; several of her children and grandchildren, including Napachie Pootoogook, Kiugak Ashoona, Qaqaq Ashoona, and Shuvinai Ashoona, went on to become celebrated artists in their own right.
After Ashoona’s death in the early-to-mid 1940s, she supported her family through years of hardship before eventually settling permanently in Cape Dorset. Her career gained momentum through the 1960s and reached wide recognition in the 1970s: in 1971 she published the book Pictures Out of My Life with Dorothy Harley Eber, adapted in 1973 into a National Film Board documentary of the same name. In 1974 she was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, and in 1977 she was made a Member of the Order of Canada. A major retrospective of her drawings toured Canada and the US from 1976 to 1978, including venues such as the National Gallery of Canada and the Smithsonian Institution.
Her work has since been held and exhibited by institutions including the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Winnipeg Art Gallery, the Vancouver Art Gallery, and the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, and in 1993 she was honoured posthumously on a Canadian postage stamp marking International Women’s Day. Pitseolak Ashoona died in Cape Dorset in 1983.
Deep Dive:
More on Kinngait Studios (formerly Cape Dorset Print Studio), Printmaking & Cape Dorset Prints.
Art Canada Institute’s Pitseolak Ashoona: Life and Work by Christine Lalonde digital book & Christina Lalonde on Pitseolak Ashoona ACI Art Talks.
La Guilde Exhibition: Ashoona – Enduring Art Stories.
Foundation:
The Canadian Art Preservation Foundation posts short biographies and information on artists and artwork from its collection in a not-so-subtle attempt to capture your attention and interest in our mission, but we also just want to keep this artwork in view. We are excited about the art we collect and want to share it with you.
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