Renowned for their true-to-life nature, Pootoogook’s works reimagine the photographed world with a personal vision.

Like Peter Pitseolak before him, Itee Pootoogook (1951-2014) used photographs as sources for drawings. That such practices were historically discouraged by the Co-op in Kinngait (Cape Dorset)1 speaks to the marginal status of photography in its art history and to the strong conventions governing the particular subjects, media and styles of art produced there. Pitseolak’s reliance on his documentary photographs to make accurate drawings did not go unnoticed: few of his drawings were made into prints and those selected, he observed, did not favour “the real.”2

In 2010, nearly forty years after Pitseolak’s death, Itee Pootoogook’s first solo exhibition was presented at Feheley Fine Arts in Toronto. In the brochure for the exhibition, tellingly titled An Arctic Lens, the artist’s matter-of-fact commentary on the photographic basis of his drawings brought this vital dimension of