The new Kinngait (Cape Dorset) 2009 prints collection has just arrived down south and is now available in our gallery !
 
The 2009 collection of Kinngait count thirty six prints, made out of different techniques of making prints : stonecut, lithograph, serigraph, aquatint, etching, stencil. Itee Pootoogook, Kananginak Pootoogook, Kavavaow Mannomee, Kenojuak Ashevak, Mayoreak Ashoona, Ningeokuluk [...]

Have you ever seen a dancing bear represented into carving, print or drawing by an Inuit artist ? Of course you did and it is not surprising because in Inuit art, dancing bear is the most popular iconographic subject. We can see so many artworks illustrating dancing bears on the international art market !  But [...]

Kangiqliniq is an Inuit community located on the West coast of Hudson Bay. Kangiqliniq means in Inuktitut «the bay» and Rankin Inlet is its English name : the town was named by owners of the Rankin Inlet Mine which produced nickel and copper ore there between 1957 and 1962. The mine was the more important [...]

Kuujjuaraapik is the most southern Inuit community in Canada, located on the west coast of Nunavik in Northern Quebec. Kuujjuaraapik is known by different names as people from different languages and cultures lived and still live today there : it was called Kuujjuaraapik « the little great river » in Inuktitut, Whapmagootsi « where there [...]

Ulukhaqtuuq, « where we sew» in Innuinaqtun (Inuktitut dialect), is an Inuit community located on the west side of the Victoria Island in the Northwest Territories in the Canadian Arctic.  A population of 398 ulukhaqtuurmiut including 105 families live there (2006 census, Statistics Canada). Ulukhaqtuuq (formerly Holman in English) was established in 1939 when a [...]

Qamanittuaq « where the river widens» in Inuktitut, is located in the Kivalliq area in Nunavut, 320 km inland from the Hudson Bay. Qamanittuq, formerly Baker Lake until 1977, is the Canadian Arctic’s sole inland community.  By 2006, a census of 1728 inhabitants and 450 families was taken in Qamanittuaq ; 47% of the population [...]

Short History
Printmaking started in 1961 in Nunavik as a cultural and economic project of the newly formed Puvirnituq Cooperative, following the example of the Kinngait print shop in Nunavut begun in 1957. Prints were also created in others Nunavik communities in Inujjuaq, Ivujivik, Kuujjuaraapik and Kangiqsujuaq.
Annual print collections were produced in Puvirnituq from 1962 through [...]

The first Inuit co-operatives
 
A co-operative –or the co-op - is a group gathering people together who work in the same way in order to achieve the same objectives.  By 1956, in Kinngait (in Nunavut), the Inuit artists who were looking for more autonomy established the first co-operative in their community with financial supports from the [...]

The Nunavik area, «the place where we live» in Inuktitut, extends over 560,000 squares kilometres in the Northern part of Quebec -one third of the province of Quebec. Nunavik is separated from Nunavut Territory by Hudson Bay to the west and Hudson Strait and Ungava Bay to the North.
 
Fourteen communities are located along the [...]

In the Canadian Arctic, printmaking began in 1956 in Kinngait (Nunavut) thanks to the strong involvement of the Inuit people who live there added to James Houston’s support. The first annual print collection has been designed after two years of experimentation leading to elaborating a unique printing technique : stonecut.

 
Derived from the Japanese woodcut process, [...]