Napachie Pootoogook

Napachie Pootoogook

Napachie Pootoogook (1938-2002) - Artist Biography

Napachie Pootoogook is the only daughter of acclaimed artist Pitseolak Ashoona. She was born in the Sarruq Island camp near south Baffin Island. Her father, Ashoona, died while she was six or seven years old. After his death, Pootoogook, along with her mother and five brothers, lived a traditional nomadic Inuit lifestyle and survived with the support of their community to survive. With her mother's encouragement, Napachie began drawing in her early twenties, developing her own unique style and viewpoint. Her brothers, Kiugak and Qaqaq Ashoona, are well known sculptors. As well, two of her sisters-in-law, Mayureak and Sorosiluto Ashoona are well known graphic artists.

In the mid-1950s, Napachie entered into an arranged marriage with Eegyvudluk Pootoogook, an Inuit printmaker and carver, although the difficulties she saw in her parents' arranged marriage originally made her hesitant. The two were married in Kaiktuuq, Nunavut, then moved to Cape Dorset where they lived for most of their marriage, except for two years spent living in Iqaluit. Pootoogook and her husband had eleven children, several of whom died young. Two children died in a house fire in the early 1960s, and one of their daughters drowned soon after.

Continuing the family's artistic legacy, their surviving daughter, Annie Pootoogook, grew up to be an important contemporary Inuit artist known for her prints and drawings. In her lifetime, Napachie was made a grandmother to many grandchildren. Pootoogook's only written and spoken language was Inuktitut.
Pootoogook began drawing in her early twenties with her mother's encouragement. Like many Inuit artists, she brought her drawings to the Cape Dorset-based West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative (now known as the Kinngait Co-operative), an institution that would purchase artworks and offered art classes. Pootoogook sold her first drawings to James Archibald Houston for $20 when she was twenty-five years old. She continued to draw and make prints until her death, producing more than 5000 original works. Pootoogook's art was included in fourteen Cape Dorset print collections and has been featured in many anthologies of Inuit art since the 1960s.

Although much of her early work, such as the print, “Eskimo Sea Dreams” (1960), presents a lyrical, dream-like reflection of Inuit beliefs in the spirit world, the main thrust of her prints and drawings since the mid-1970’s have been more concerned with recording traditional life, clothing and local Inuit history. In prints such as, “Atchealda’s Battle” (1978), “The First Policeman I Saw” (1978), “Nascopie Reef” (1989) and “Whaler’s Exchange” (1989), Napatchie uses a vigorous, energetic figurative style to bring to life significant events of the past. Like her sister-in-law, Sorosiluto, Napatchie participated in the acrylic painting/drawing workshops established by the West Baffin Co-operative in 1976. Her interest in landscape and Western notions of spatial composition would seem to grow out of this experience. Most recently, Napatchie has been working directly in the lithographic medium and experimenting with life drawing as a preparatory stage toward the print image.” - Marie Routledge, “North American Women Artists of the Twentieth Century: A Biographical Dictionary”, 1995

Napatchie’s work in recent years had focused on local history and stories about people and events in the Cape Dorset area, often with accompanying text to explain the circumstances. She has amassed a unique and important body of work. She is represented in this year’s annual collection by three prints which illustrate her narrative style and the importance of traditional culture and stories. - West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative Biography, Annual Print Collection, 2000

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
• Cape Dorset - A Decade of Eskimo Prints & Recent Sculpture, National Gallery of Canada, in cooperation with the Canadian Eskimo Art Committee
• Cape Dorset Revisited, McMichael Canadian Art Collection
• Cape Dorset Revisited - a collection of previously unreleased prints, exhibited at selected commercial galleries, organized by, West Baffin Eskimo Co-op
• Eskimo Games: Graphics and Sculpture/ Giuochi Eschimesi: grafiche e sculture, National Gallery of Modern Art
• Imaak Takujavut: The way we see it Paintings from Cape Dorset, McMichael Canadian Art Collection
• Images of the Inuit: from the Simon Fraser Collection, Simon Fraser Gallery, Simon Fraser University
• In Cape Dorset We Do It This Way: Three Decades of Inuit Printmaking, McMichael Canadian Art Collection
• Inuit Games/Inuit Pinguangit/Jeux des inuit, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
• Inuit Graphic Art from Indian & Northern Affairs Canada, Winnipeg Art Gallery
• Inuit Masterworks: Selections from the Collection of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, McMichael Canadian Collection
• Inuit Women and their Art: Graphics and Wallhangings, Gallery 210, University of Missouri
• Isumavut:The Artistic Expression of Nine Cape Dorset Women, Canadian Museum of Civilization
• Kunst van de Inuit Eskimo's, Gemeentelijk Kunstcentrum Huis Hellemans
• Night Spirits: Cape Dorset 1960-1965, Winnipeg Art Gallery
• Polar Vision: Canadian Eskimo Graphics, Jerusalem Artists' House Museum
• Sojourns to Nunavut: Contemporary Inuit Art from Canada, at Bunkamura Art Gallery, presented by the University of British Columbia Museum of Anthropology and The McMichael Canadian Art Collection
• Spoken in Stone: an exhibition of Inuit Art, Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies
• The Art of the Eskimo, Simon Fraser Gallery, Simon Fraser University
• The Cape Dorset Print, Presented at Rideau Hall by Indian and Northern Affairs Canada
• The Eskimo Art Collection of the Toronto-Dominion Bank, Toronto-Dominion Bank
• Works from the McCuaig Collection in the Laurentian University Museum and Arts Centre, Laurentian University Museum and Arts Centre

COLLECTIONS
• Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Queen's University, Kingston
• Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, Fort Worth
• Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Victoria
• Art Gallery of Windsor, Windsor
• Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton
• Canadian Museum of Civilization, Hull
• Clifford E. Lee Collection, University of Alberta, Edmonton
• Confederation Centre of the Arts, Charlottetown
• Dennos Museum Center, Northwestern Michigan College, Traverse City
• Department of Foreign Affairs, Ottawa
• Fitzgerald Collection, Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, Banff
• Glenbow Museum, Calgary
• Inuit Cultural Institute, Rankin Inlet
• Laurentian University Museum and Arts Centre, Sudbury
• London Regional Art Gallery, London
• McMaster University Art Gallery, Hamilton
• McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg
• Musee des beaux-arts de Montreal, Montreal
• Museum of Anthropology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver
• National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
• Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre, Yellowknife
• Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto
• Simon Fraser Gallery, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby
• Teleglobe Canada, Montreal
• Toronto-Dominion Bank Collection, Toronto
• University of Alberta, Edmonton
• University of Lethbridge Art Gallery, Lethbridge
• Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, Banff
• Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg