Lot 109
PUDLO PUDLAT (1916-1992) KINNGAIT (CAPE DORSET)
Aeroplane, 1976 #13

Printmaker: QABAVOAK QATSIYA (1942-) KINNGAIT (CAPE DORSET)
stonecut and stencil print, 25 x 34 in (63.5 x 86.4 cm)
29/50

Provenance
Private Collection, California;
By descent to the present Private Collection, California.

In contrast with many of his contemporaries, Pudlo’s later works included imagery of the southern technologies that were bringing profound changes to the North. Aeroplane illustrates the palpable and sometimes strange encounter between two cultures. Here, a diffusing light from the belly of the plane, printed by Qabavoak Qatsiya in a soft swath of white and blue inks, interacts with the ice covered hills, seals that lounge on ice floes, and traditionally dressed Inuit inhabitants of the Arctic landscape. Although by many accounts Aeroplane was considered a shock at release, Jean Blodgett, in her seminal text, Grasp Tight the Old Ways, issues readers a challenge to reconsider our preconceived notions of what Inuit art should look like. When discussing Pudlo's inclusion of modern technology Blodgett writes, "These things may have been imported at one time, but they are now - and have been for some years - an integral part of the north.... Far from exotic, Pudlo's airplanes, helicopters, angels, and churches are now part of northern reality" (p. 136).

References

In addition to being depicted on a 1978 Canada Post stamp, this image has been widely reproduced, including in: The Inuit Print, international travelling exhibition (Ottawa: National Museums of Canada and the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs, 1977), p. 129, pl. 70; Robert Lagassé, Northern Exposure: Inuit Images of Travel, exhibition catalogue, (Burnaby, B.C.: Burnaby Art Gallery, 1986), p. 27, fig. 127; Marie Routledge et. al, Pudlo: Thirty Years of Drawing (Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 1990), p. 13; 31-33; 49; 78; the drawing for the print, reproduced in colour p. 95, reproduced p. 132, pl. 63. Nancy Baele, "Inuit Artist Draws to Sell", The Ottawa Citizen, Saturday 7 July 1990, p. G3; Jean Blodgett, In Cape Dorset We Do It This Way (Kleinburg, ON: McMichael Canadian Art Collection, 1991), p. 91, no. 21b (accompanying coloured pencil drawing illustrated, no. 21a, p. 90); Carol Finley, Art of the Far North: Inuit Sculpture, Drawing, and Printmaking, (Minneapolis, MN: Lerner Publications Company, 1998), p. 49, fig. 18; Leslie Boyd Ryan, Cape Dorset Prints: A Retrospective (San Francisco: Pomegranate, 2007), p. 191.