Kinngait Prints
Kinngait is an Inuit community located in Nunavut (Baffin Island) in the Canadian Arctic ; it called in English “Cape Dorset” by Qallunaat (non Inuit) instead of its Inuit name “Kinngait” which means in inuktitut “mountains”.
The Kinngait Studios
More than 1200 people live in Kinngait and most families count with one’s one artist or more as carver, printer or drawer. The Kinngait hamlet is well-know on the international art market as the major art centre in the Canadian Arctic.
Kinngait-miut (people who live in Kinngait) launched out in printmaking creation fifty years ago when the first studio opened there. In 1959 was found the West-Baffin Eskimo Co-operative by the Inuit own selves to control the artworks distribution outside the Inuit territories and locally redistribute the profit of the sales.
Prints are realized in two studios depending the printmaking technique used : there is a studio for stonecut and another one for lithograph where work between five and ten printmakers in each studio.
Kinngait Annual Print collection 2008
The 2008 Kinngait print collection includes 15 lithographs, 10 etching and aquatint, 8 stonecut and stencil, and 1 stonecut. These prints were realized by 12 drawers (Annie Putuguq, Arnaqu Ashevak, Itee Putuguq, Kananginak Putuguq, Qavavau Mannumi, Kenojuak Ashevak, Ningiukuluk Teevee, Ohotaq Mikkigak, Papiara Tukiki, Pitalosie Saila, Suvinai Ashoona and Tim Pitsiulak) and 5 printmakers (Niviaqsi Quvianatuliaq, Pitseolak Niviaqsi, Qiatsuq Niviaqsi, Arnaqu Ashevak and Qavavau Mannumi).
The prints are one of their important methods of storytelling, thus continuing the transmission of traditional knowledge. These prints record Inuit family and individual histories, or their feelings about oral myths. They show with pride the Inuit territories, their animals and spirit creatures from the shamanic world.
See :
Ryan, Leslye Boyd, 2007, Cape Dorset prints, a retrospective : fifty years of printmaking at the Kinngait studios, San Francisco, Pomegranate.
(this book is sold in our gallery ! Please, contact us)
Lien :
