Osuitok Ipeelee (23 September 1923 Neeouleeutalik camp-2005 Cape Dorset
[Osuitok Ipeelee](_blank)
at katilvik.com) was an
Inuk
Inuit (; iu, ᐃᓄᐃᑦ 'the people', singular: Inuk, , dual: Inuuk, ) are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, and ...
sculptor who lived in
Cape Dorset
Kinngait (Inuktitut meaning "high mountain" or "where the hills are"; Syllabics: ᑭᙵᐃᑦ), formerly known as Cape Dorset until 27 February 2020, is an Inuit hamlet located on Dorset Island near Foxe Peninsula at the southern tip of Baffin ...
,
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'' ...
. His sculptures in green
soapstone
Soapstone (also known as steatite or soaprock) is a talc-schist, which is a type of metamorphic rock. It is composed largely of the magnesium rich mineral talc. It is produced by dynamothermal metamorphism and metasomatism, which occur in the zo ...
of caribou and birds are particularly valued for their balance and delicacy. He was an early collaborator with
James Archibald Houston
James Archibald Houston (June 12, 1921 – April 17, 2005) was a Canadian artist, designer, children's author and filmmaker who played an important role in the recognition of Inuit art and introduced printmaking to the Inuit. The Inuit named him ...
, and by Houston's account was instrumental in the conception of the West Baffin Island Eskimo Cooperative. He was also one of the witnesses of the last-remembered traditional Inuit trial.
Biography
Youth and early work
Ipeelee grew up in a traditional Inuit environment, learning to hunt and fish from his father, Ohotok Ipeelee, at a small camp near Cape Dorset. Ohotok also taught his son how to carve ivory, and as early as the age of thirteen Osuitok began to sculpt. This was encouraged by Roman Catholic missionaries, who bought carvings and commissioned small crucifixes from him. The artist's earliest extant works are ivory miniatures of hunting equipment, typical of the
historic period of Inuit art, that date from the 1940s.
James Houston and subsequent career
Before Houston's 1951 expedition, Ipeelee was already regionally known as the greatest carver on
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 ...
. Under Houston's influence he began to carve sculptures in soapstone, which had a reliable market in the south. Exhibits of Inuit art at the
National Gallery of Canada
The National Gallery of Canada (french: Musée des beaux-arts du Canada), located in the capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, is Canada's national art museum. The museum's building takes up , with of space used for exhibiting art. It is one of the l ...
in 1952 and 1955 included his work, crediting him as "Oshaweetuk B". With recognition he began to receive official commissions. In 1955 he directed a team of craftsmen in the creation of the official mace for the
Council of the Northwest Territories, and in 1959 he was asked to create a sculpture of
Queen Elizabeth II
Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II, her death in 2022. She was queen ...
, which was presented to the Queen upon her visit to Canada that year.
The birth of Inuit printmaking
The idea of a Cape Dorset printmaking program developed from a winter 1957 conversation between Houston and Ipeelee.
As Houston recalled:
Osuitok Ipeelee sat near me one evening studying the sailor-head trademarks on a number of identical cigarette packages. He...stated that it must have been very tiresome...to sit painting every one of the small heads on the small packages with the exact sameness...
My explanation was far from successful...partly because I was starting to wonder whether this could have any practical application in Inuit terms.
Looking around to find some way to demonstrate printing, I saw an ivory walrus tusk that Osuitok had recently engraved...
Taking an old tin of writing ink... with my finger I dipped into the black residue and smoothed it over the tusk. I laid a piece of toilet paper on the inked surface and rubbed the top lightly, then quickly stripped the paper from the tusk. I saw that by mere good fortune, I had pulled a fairly good negative of Osuitok's incised design.
"We could do that," he said, with the instant decisiveness of a hunter. And so we did.
Despite this, Ipeelee only contributed a total of four prints to the annual print collections, two in 1958 and two in 1959. He never returned to the medium explaining that he had not been paid enough for the drawings on which the prints were based, and found sculpture to be more profitable.
Works
Notable sculptures
*''Harpoon Head Figure'' (1983), serpentine. In the collection of the
National Gallery of Canada
The National Gallery of Canada (french: Musée des beaux-arts du Canada), located in the capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, is Canada's national art museum. The museum's building takes up , with of space used for exhibiting art. It is one of the l ...
.
*
Prints
*''Musk Ox'', 1958. Stonecut
*''Weasel'', 1958. Stonecut
*''Four Musk Oxen'', 1959. Stonecut and sealskin stencil
*''Owl, Fox, and Hare Legend'', 1959. Stonecut and sealskin stencil
Honors
*
National Aboriginal Achievement Award
The Indspire Awards, until 2012 the National Aboriginal Achievement Awards, are annual awards presented by Indspire in Canada. The awards are intended to celebrate and encourage excellence in the Aboriginal community.
About
The awards were fir ...
, now the Indspire Awards, recipient, 2004.
* Elected a member of the
Royal Canadian Academy of Arts
The Royal Canadian Academy of Arts (RCA) is a Canadian arts-related organization that was founded in 1880.
History 1880 to 1890
The title of Royal Canadian Academy of Arts was received from Queen Victoria on 16 July 1880. The Governor General ...
, 1973.
Footnotes
References
*
*
External links
Biographical entry at the Canadian EncyclopediaImage galleryfrom the National Gallery of Canada.
Entryon the
Union List of Artist Names
The Union List of Artist Names (ULAN) is a free online database of the Getty Research Institute using a controlled vocabulary, which by 2018 contained over 300,000 artists and over 720,000 names for them, as well as other information about artist ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ipeelee, Osuitok
1923 births
2005 deaths
Inuit sculptors
Members of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts
Artists from Nunavut
People from Kinngait
Inuit from the Northwest Territories
20th-century Canadian sculptors
Indspire Awards
Inuit from Nunavut