Anna Kingwatsiak (1911–1971) was an Inuit visual artist.

Personal life

Kingwatsiak was born in a camp near Kimmirut in 1911, on the south shore of

Baffin Island Baffin Island (formerly Baffin Land), in the Canadian territory of Nunavut, is the largest island in Canada and the fifth-largest island in the world. Its area is , slightly larger than Spain; its population was 13,039 as of the 2021 Canadia ...

in what is now

Nunavut Nunavut ( , ; iu, ᓄᓇᕗᑦ , ; ) is the largest and northernmost Provinces and territories of Canada#Territories, territory of Canada. It was separated officially from the Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999, via the ''Nunavut Act'' ...

. She was the oldest child in an artistic family, as several of her siblings were also accomplished artists, including Keeleemeeoomee Samualie (born 1919), Iyola (born 1933), Tye Adla (born 1936) and Mikigak Kingwatsiak. In the 1930s her family moved closer to Kinngait, but Kingwatsiak, who had already married, remained in Kimmirut. After her husband's 1961 death from tuberculosis she moved to Kinngait to be closer to her sisters.

Art

Kingwatsiak produced drawings depicting Inuit imagery and typical scenes of Inuit life. Many of her drawings were made into

prints In molecular biology, the PRINTS database is a collection of so-called "fingerprints": it provides both a detailed annotation resource for protein families, and a diagnostic tool for newly determined sequences. A fingerprint is a group of conserve ...

by the

West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative The West Baffin Eskimo Cooperative, also known as the Kinngait Co-operative is an Inuit co-operative in Kinngait, Nunavut best known for its activities in buying, producing and selling Inuit artworks. The co-operative is part of Arctic Co-operati ...

. She also designed printed home textiles as part of an effort to develop a commercial market for the co-operative's art in the 1950s and 1960s. Her works are held in permanent collections at the National Gallery of Canada, the McMichael Collection, the

Rhode Island School of Design Museum The Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD Museum) is an art museum integrated with the Rhode Island School of Design, in Providence, Rhode Island, US. The museum was co-founded with the school in 1877, and still shares multiple build ...

, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and the

Art Gallery of Guelph The Art Gallery of Guelph (AGG), formerly the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, is a public gallery and adjoining sculpture park in Guelph, Ontario. The AGG has a collection of over 9,000 works and focusses on research, publishing, educational progra ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kingwatsiak, Anna 1911 births 1971 deaths Inuit artists Inuit from Nunavut Artists from Nunavut 20th-century Canadian printmakers 20th-century Canadian women artists Canadian textile artists 20th-century textile artists 20th-century women textile artists