INUIT ARTIST PUDLO PUDLAT BORN
Pudlat, born on Baffin Island, Northwest Territories, was one of the most original modern Inuit artists. Initially a hunter and fisherman, in the late 1950s, he came to Cape Dorset to recover from tuberculosis. With James Houston, director of the West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative, he started out carving, but an arm injury made him switch to drawing around 1960. Pudlat made prints, painted with acrylics, and drew with graphite pencils, colored pencils, and felt-tip markers. His drawings reflect the juxtapositions then-occurring between modern technology and the traditional semi-nomadic Inuit lifestyle that Pudlo was witnessing. In one drawing, a muskox rider lassoes an airplane; in another, a loon steers a motorboat. Of his 4,500 drawings, some 200 have been turned into prints and sculptures. Pudlat’s work is in most Canadian museums, including the National Gallery of Canada, as well as in museums in the U.S. and Europe. Pudlat died December 28, 1992, in Cape Dorset.
Source: Maria Muehlen, “Pudlo Pudlat,” The Canadian Encyclopedia, 2/7/2006. Retrieved 6/6/2019, http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/pudlo-pudlat/ Lithograph: Pudlo Pudlat (1916-1992), 1977. “Women at Fish Lake.” Courtesy of Dorset Fine Arts.
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