Keeleemeeoomee Samualie
The size of the three walrus heads, way out of proportion with reality, tells it all—communicating intimidation through perspective. The artist expresses feeling by drawing. No need for words.
It is somewhat ironic given my history of the study and appreciation of Inuit art that I didn’t own an Inuit print until 1972. Although I saw and was intrigued by sculptures exhibited in the all-Canadian shop of the Château Laurier in Ottawa, in 1965 prints were not on view, and I was unaware of their existence. It took an illustrated article in
The New Yorker about the debut of the 1972 Cape Dorset Annual Print Collection to alert me to them. The featured print was Walrus
Hunter by Keeleemeeoomee Samualie (1919–1983). Luckily it was available for purchase and it has been hanging on my living room wall ever since. Thus began a 50-year adventure studying and documenting Inuit art, in particular prints, artists and printmakers.
Intrigued by Inuit art from my early trips to Ottawa, but unable to find much first-hand information, I decided to take a stab at informing myself and others. In 1976, I launched Arts & Culture of the North, an international newsletter on circumpolar arts and events. The effort to accurately report on the annual print collections led me to an interest in printmaking and eventually to the publication of three workbooks dedicated to the printmakers. Furthering public interest in the study of Inuit art and artists, I organized a series of six conferences in Toronto, Ottawa, Winnipeg and Kinngait (Cape Dorset), as well as Washington, DC, and Chicago, IL, that brought together artists, dealers, scholars and enthusiasts, most of whom had never met before.
I chose to write about this specific print for several reasons. Initially, of course, because it was the first print I owned (doesn’t everyone have a soft spot for their eldest), but mainly for its fabulous, wordless emotion. There is no doubt that the artist experienced the jaw-dropping challenge of being a lightly-armed human-sized hunter confronting an enormous walrus. The size of the three walrus heads, way out of proportion with reality, tells it all—communicating intimidation through perspective. The artist expresses feeling by drawing. No need for words. Finally, I chose this image because it is illustrative of many great prints from other print-producing communities that emphasize perspective over reality to express a feeling or point of view. This is a marvellously effective approach to telling a visual story, which seems to come naturally to those who learn to be observant at a young age. The quality of the print also comes through in the fastidious work of Timothy Ottochie (1904–1982), who translates and interprets Samualie’s drawing.
I had my own taste of this hunter’s scary situation when, many years ago, I was sitting in a zodiac bobbing in the water of the Bering Strait, surrounded by thousands of walruses floating on ice pods. It was exciting and intimidating. Perhaps these types of experiences contribute to a deeper enjoyment of Inuit prints and the perspectives they offer.
Some further examples to look for:
Walrus Hunt (1964) by Parr (1893–1969), with the walrus depicted similarly out of proportion to the hunters in their kayaks;
Bird Dream Forewarning Blizzards (1959) by Tudlik (1890–1966), where in his dream the artist imagines a huge bird to express an overpowering feeling; Host of Caribou (1976) by Jessie Oonark, OC, RCA (1906–1985), where the herd is shown smaller in scale to reveal their place far in the distance, as well as several prints and drawings by Luke Anguhadluq (1895–1982) and additional experimental prints from the Holman Print Shop (now the Ulukhaktok Arts Centre), created between 1962 and 1963. Finally, a little personal addendum: my favorite Inuit print? Family (1971) by Anguhadluq. It was the first image produced out of Qamani’tuaq (Baker Lake) that I ever saw “in the flesh” at a private home in Winnipeg, as collections from the community had not yet been exhibited in my part of the world. A child between a mother and father; a charming and warm community of three. I have always loved the image but have no thought of owning it: it’s not available and I couldn’t afford it, but it remains in my heart.
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Sandra Barz is a writer, editor and researcher, who, for 50 years, has been dedicated to documenting Inuit art, the evolution of printmaking in the North and encouraging interest in Inuit art worldwide. She launched the first international newsletter on circumpolar arts entitled Arts & Culture of the North (1976–84). She is the author of three volumes on Inuit printmaking entitled Inuit Artists Print
Workbook (1981, 1990 and 2004) and, in 2016, received an honorary doctorate from the University of Manitoba.