Kenojuak Ashevak became one of the first
Inuit women in
Cape Dorset to begin drawing. She worked in
graphite,
coloured pencils and
felt-tip pens, and occasionally used
poster paints,
watercolours or
acrylics. She created many carvings from
soapstone and thousands of
drawings,
etchings,
stone cut prints and
prints — all sought after by museums and collectors. She designed several drawings for
Canadian stamps and
coins, and in 2004 she created the first Inuk-designed stained-glass window for the
John Bell Chapel in
Oakville, Ontario. In 2017, the $10 bill released in celebration of Canada's 150th birthday features Kenojuak's stone-cut and stencil printed work called "Owl’s Bouquet" in silver holographic foil. During Ashevak's stay at Parc Savard hospital in
Quebec City, 1952 to 1955 she learned to make dolls from Harold Pfeiffer and to do beadwork. At the end of her hospital stay, her crafts attracted the attention of a civil administrator and pioneer Inuit art promoter
James Archibald Houston and his wife alma who encouraged her to persevere with her artistic activities. Houston introduced print-making to Cape Dorset artists in the 1950s, and he and his wife began marketing Inuit arts and crafts, including an exhibit of Inuit art in 1959. The first woman to take part in the printmaking workshop in Cape Dorset, Kenojuak soon found success : her work was soon recognized internationally. First displayed in art catalogs, her works were later exhibited in art galleries. In 1970, Kenojuak and her husband created a mural for the World Expo in Osaka. She became a member of the
Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 1974, and a member of the
Order of Canada in 1982. In 2002, her work was exhibited at the National Gallery of Canada in the exhibition
Kenojuak Ashevak: To make something beautiful. She received the
Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts in 2008, and became a member of the Order of Nunavut in 2012.
Reception of her work in Southern Canada Her reception in southern Canada was in fact rapidly favourable :
Rabbit Eating Seaweed was Ashevak's first print, part of a debut exhibition of Inuit graphics. The young woman from the remote Canadian North was an immediate success, said Christine Lalonde, an expert in Inuit art with the
National Gallery of Canada. "She had her own sense of design... She was already willing to let the pencil go, because she had the hand and the eye co-ordination to make the image she already had in her head." The National Gallery owns several copies of
The Enchanted Owl, including the original pencil sketch from 1960. That sketch reveals much, said Lalonde. "It's a very simple drawing — pencil on pulp paper. But you can see even then how confident and sure her line was as she was making the curves of the fanning feathers." In 1963, she was the subject of a
National Film Board of Canada documentary by producer
John Feeney,
Eskimo Artist: Kenojuak, about Kenojuak, then 35, and her family, as well as traditional Inuit life on Baffin Island. The film showed a stonecutter carving her design into a relief block in stone, cutting away all the non-printing surfaces; she would then apply ink to the carved stone, usually in two or more colours, and carefully make 50 "shadow" prints for sale. With the money she earned from the film, Johnniebo was able to purchase his own canoe and become an independent hunter to help provide for the family, which now included a new daughter, Aggeo, and an adopted son, Ashevak. The work of Ashevak Kenojuak can be found in the collections of Canada's National Gallery of Art, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the Burnaby Art Gallery. Kenojuak became the first Inuk artist inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame in 2001, and travelled to Toronto with her daughter, Silaqi, to attend the ceremony. —
CBC News Since her death, prices for Kenojuak's work have reached new records, including $59,000 paid for a copy of
Rabbit Eating Seaweed. == Style ==