Notes

New Online Art Gallery Showcases Inuit Art and Artists

Inuit Artists website showcases hundreds of examples of original art created by Inuit Artists from the Arctic Regions of North America, as a way of celebrating the lives and art of the Inuit Artists represented. The Inuit are the indigenous people of the arctic regions of North America. Most of the Inuit Artists represented here live (or lived) in the Nunavut region of the Canadian North. Their work is prized and collected worldwide and is available through dealers who are registered with the two primary sources for Inuit Art, both located in Ontario, Canada. Purchases of art from these sources directly benefits the Inuit Artists, their families and communities, who rely on income from their art to survive. We are registered dealers and obtain most of the Inuit Art we sell directly from the primary sources, whose purpose is entirely to provide support for Inuit Artists and their Communities. This work includes a variety of original handmade prints, original drawings and paintings on paper, sculpture, and other forms of original art.

Of course the Native North American people who have inhabited the Arctic regions for centuries had their own unique forms of art and storytelling long before they had contact with ‘Western Civilization’. But inuit artists from more Southern regions who discovered their art encouraged them to create more for sale to collectors, and also taught them new techniques and means of creating work for a mass audience.

Contemporary Inuit Art creation for sale to collectors began in earnest in 1949, when a young artist from Toronto, who had purchased carvings and artwork from the Native Inuit he encountered in his journeys, then brought their art to the attention of collectors in Toronto, who wanted more. As a result many Inuit Art cooperatives were formed to support Artists and Art Production, eventually all coming under the purview of one: Canadian Arctic Producers, now located in Ontario, is the wholesale art marketing branch of the Arctic Co-operatives Limited, a service organization owned and controlled by 32 community-based, multi-purpose Co-operatives in Nunavut, the Northwest Territories and the Yukon.

Houston made his home in the Arctic, acting as a sort of liaison between the Inuit Artists and Toronto dealers. Eventually he made his way to Cape Dorset, where a question from an artist about how the image on his cigarette package was produced, prompted him to teach the Inuit how to create original prints. Huston helped found the West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative printmaking studios in the late 50’s. Now known as Kinngait Studios, it is the longest continuously running printmaking studio in Canada.

It is from the Kinngait Printmaking Studios in Cape Dorset, and the Arctic Co-operatives throughout the North, that the wonderful work of Inuit Artists is brought to collectors around the world, who prize it for it’s originality, spirituality, beauty, skillful creation, and historic significance. And since purchases of Inuit Art through these organizations help support hundreds of Inuit families and their communities, it provides a mutually beneficial outcome for both artists and collectors. As lovers of Inuit Art, Collectors, and Dealers, Inuit Artists is proud to celebrate the lives and Art of these Inuit Artists, and to showcase Inuit Art in our Online Art Gallery.


Website: inuitartists.com