Pitseolak Ashoona
Pitseolak Ashoona, ᐱᑦᓯᐅᓛᖅ ᐊᓲᓇ, (1904–1983) was an Inuit artist born on Tujjaat (Nottingham Island) in the Hudson Straight while her family travelled from Salluit (Sugluk) on the northern coast of Arctic Quebec to the southern coast of Qikiqtaaluk (Baffin Island), Nunavut. She is known for her lively prints and drawings with imaginative renderings of spirits and monsters. She was inducted into the Royal Academy of the Arts in 1974 and was awarded the Order of Canada in 1977.
In her early life, Pitseolak lived in semi-nomadic hunting camps throughout southern Qikiqtaaluk (Baffin Island). She married her husband, Ashoona, in the early 1920s, and they had six children who lived with Pitseolak into adulthood. Many of them became artists, including Ashoonas Ottochie, Komwartok, Kaka and Kiawak, and Napatchie Pootoogook. Ashoona passed away during an epidemic in the Nettiling Lake area, leaving Pitseolak to raise their young children on her own.
In the late 1950s, Pitseolak moved to the Kinngait (Cape Dorset) area. In Kinngait, she first worked with Alma Houston sewing goods, such as mittens and parkas, to sell. After seeing some drawings created by her cousin Kiakshuk, she taught herself to draw and became an active contributor to the Annual Cape Dorset Print Collection. From 1960 to 1983, she produced a collection of more than 7,000 images, 233 of which were included as prints in the Annual Cape Dorset Print Collections. Her prints and drawings illustrated Inuit life pre-contact with the south, providing a window into Inuit tradition and worldviews.
By the 1970s, she was a world-famous artist, with work exhibited across North America and Europe. In 1973, she narrated her story in the National Film Board's animated documentary Pictures out of My Life. The film was based on interviews from Dorothy Eber's book Pitseolak: Pictures of my life published in 1971. In 1993, a portrait of Pitseolak designed by Heather J. Cooper was featured on a Canadian stamp in commemoration of International Woman's Day. Pitseolak’s prints and drawings have been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Canada and internationally. In 1975, a retrospective on her work simply titled Pitseolak was organized by the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada and the West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative. It toured the US and Canada from 1975 to 1977. Her work is held in numerous public and private collections, including the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, the Canadian Museum of History, Gatineau, the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, and the British Museum, London, UK, among many others.
Pitseolak continued working on her prints and drawings to support her family until she passed away in 1983.