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Pootoogook, Kananginak
The Inuit World Le monde inuit
c. 1977 v. 1977

In the 1970s the Cape Dorset print studio was expanding and experimenting. In the fall of 1972, the Milwaukee-born typographer and letterpress artist Wilfred Hudson (1928-2014) arrived in Kinngait to experiment in typography with the Inuit printmakers. He worked with a variety of students – Elijah Pootoogook, Jimmy Manning, Tukiki Manomee, and Annie Pootoogook – and produced small booklets written by people in the community. After a brief spell in Toronto, Hudson remained in Cape Dorset until 1979 to develop the possibility of an Inuit-owned publishing house in the Canadian Arctic. He commissioned Toronto-based typographers to create syllabic font for use on the letterpress print he brought to the community, and designed his own syllabic font with newly trained typographers. In addition to the many broadsides, pamphlets and booklets, The Inuit World, published in 1977, was among the most ambitious project tackled by the Kingait Press, as the group was called. An elegant and technical tour-de-force, the book was typeset by Pia Pootoogook, Udjualuk Etidlooie, and Hudson, and included an unbound linoblock print (mechanically transferred to zinc block to endure the print run of 1000) by Kananginak Pootoogook. With authorship jointly attributed to “the artist and the printers”.

Pootoogook, Kananginak
Ikirasak camp, near Cape Dorset (Kinngait) NU 1935; died Ottawa ON 2010 Ikirasak camp, near Cape Dorset (Kinngait) NU 1935; died Ottawa ON 2010
The Inuit World Le monde inuit
c. 1977 v. 1977
Stonecut on paper Gravure sur pierre
18.2 x 25.0 (to sight edge)
Gift of Dr. Anne Croy, 2019 Don de Dre Anne Croy, 2019
62-015.03

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