Ulayu Pingwartok (1904 – 1978) was a Canadian Inuk artist known for drawings of domestic scenes and nature.
Biography
Pingwartok was born on April 7, 1904, in Lake Harbour (Kimmirut) on southwestern Baffin Island in the Northwest Territories, now Nunavut. She moved into the settlement of Cape Dorset in 1959 where she started to draw and was encouraged to create drawings for the annual print collections.[1]
Artwork
“Pingwartok produced over seven hundred drawings in her life, and thirty of them were translated into prints for ten annual Cape Dorset collections between 1965 and 1979.”[2] Her early prints were portraits of birds, focusing on precise depiction of feather. She later concentrated in women’s activities on a traditional camp life and shelter such as tents and igloos.[3]
January - February 1967 Cape Dorset - A Decade of Eskimo, Prints & Recent Sculpture, National Gallery of Canada in cooperation with the Canadian Eskimo Art Committee, Ottawa, Ontario
June - July 1967 4th National Burnaby Print Show, Burnaby Art Society, Burnaby, British Columbia
1970 Graphic Art by Eskimos of Canada: Second Collection, Cultural Affairs Division, Department of External Affairs, Ottawa, Ontario
September - Oct 1970 Canadian Eskimo Arts Festival, Alaska Methodist University Galleries, Anchorage, Alaska, U.S.A.
January - February 1971 The Art of the Eskimo, Simon Fraser Gallery, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia
1976 Cape Dorset Prints, London Art Gallery, Organized for the Central Huron Library, Clinton, Ontario
Jan 1977 - June 1982 The Inuit Print/L'estampe inuit, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and the National Museum of Man, Ottawa, Ontario
July 1979 - Oct 1981 Images of the Inuit: from the Simon Fraser Collection, Simon Fraser Gallery, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia
August - October 1980 The Inuit Amautik: I Like My Hood To Be Full, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, Manitoba
September 1983 The Way We Were - Traditional Eskimo Life, Snow Goose Associates, Seattle, Washington, USA
October - Nov 1983 The Cape Dorset Print, Presented at Rideau Hall by Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, Ottawa, Ontario
September - Oct 1984 On the Land, The Arctic Circle, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.
May - June 1987 Inuit Graphics from the Past, Arctic Artistry, Scarsdale, New York, U.S.A.
Dec 1987 - March 1989 Contemporary Inuit Drawings, Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, Guelph, Ontario
March - April 1988 Works on Paper from the Permanent Collection of Inuit Art, Canadian Guild of Crafts Quebec, Montréal, Quebec
September 1988 Canadian Prints from the McMaster Art Gallery Collection, McMaster Art Gallery, Hamilton, Ontario
August - October 1989 Inuit Graphic Art from Indian & Northern Affairs Canada, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, Manitoba
June - September 1990 Inuit Graphics and Drawings from 1959-1990, Arctic Artistry, Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, U.S.A.
February - March 1991 Cape Dorset Sculpture, McMaster Art Gallery, Hamilton, Ontario
Solo exhibitions
March 1982 - April 1984 Ulayu, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, Ottawa, Ontario