NAPACHIE ASHOONA (1974) KINNGAIT (CAPE DORSET)
My New Accordion, 1989 #23
Printmaker: PITSEOLAK NIVIAQSI R.C.A. (1947-2015) KINNGAIT (CAPE DORSET)
lithograph, 45 x 31.75 in. (114 x 80.7 cm)
3/50

Provenance
Collection of John and Joyce Price, Seattle, WA.

In addition to its monumental size, My New Accordion is an important work as it one of the only Kinngait prints that was created with the use of more than one preparatory drawing for its execution, as well as for Napachie’s use of a live model to provide the artist with empirical observation to construct her image. In the 1991 exhibition catalogue, In Cape Dorset We Do It This Way, Napachie permitted a glance into this novel creative process, “When I was trying to make the hands, it was very difficult for me because I was looking at a tiny copy. I had to redo it over and over to make it look real. So I had my daughter hold an accordion and that’s how I drew the hands.”

Beyond Napachie’s ambitious draughtsmanship evident in the print, My New Accordion shows Pitseolak Niviaqsi’s mastery of the lithography technique. The ably-applied inks evoke a sense of serenity and joy that pervades the image. The accordion itself, situated centrally on the page in Napachie’s thoughtfully rendered hands, is characterized by an orchestra of saturated colours that harmonize as they wink and wave amongst one another.

More on Napachie’s artistic struggle:
In 1991 and 1992 interviews with the curators Odette Leroux and Marion E. Jackson, Napachie recollected, “It was difficult to depict a person playing the accordion. [...] I felt a great joy in completing it. It required my efforts most compared to all the other drawings I have made (1991). My drawing of accordion playing was a small drawing, so later on I found it too small and then I was trying to copy it to make it look bigger, but I had a hard time making the same one just with a pencil. That was when I was asked to make it look bigger, the I tried my best to draw it again just with the pencil first. Then when I had to do it again on the lithograph, it was really hard work. My first drawing was much smaller than this one. It was very difficult… it is very hard even trying to make a copy of your own work (1992)."

From Odette Leroux, ed, Inuit Women Artists (Hull: CMC, 1994), p. 151]

Wallace Brannen, a printmaker and longtime arts advisor in Cape Dorset, has this additional recollection regarding the final drawing on the lithography stone at the WBEC printshop, “Napachie was having trouble with this drawing; she couldn’t get the fingers right. She said it would be nice if she could see someone actually holding an accordion. Jimmy [Manning] said he knew someone, and Pudlo [Pudlat] came in with his accordion. Napachie asked him to sit down in the chair and hold it, and then she drew him. That was the first drawing from a model that I ever observed here. When she was finished, Napachie borrowed Pudlo’s accordion and played a little tune for everyone in the shop.”

From Leslie Boyd Ryan, Cape Dorset Prints, (Pomegranate, 2007), p. 223.

References: In the 1989 Annual Graphics catalogue, in addition to being featured on the catalogue cover, there are two photographs of Napachie, the first shows her drawing on the lithograph stone and the second shows her seated and playing an accordion. My New Accordion has been extensively reproduced, including in: Jean Blodgett, In Cape Dorset We Do It This Way, (Kleinburg, ON: McMichael Canadian Art Collection, 1991), no. 36b, p. 121, one of the accompanying drawings illustrated, no. 36a, p. 120; Odette Leroux, ed, Inuit Women Artists: Voices from Cape Dorset, (Hull, QC: Canadian Museum of Civilization, 1994), reproduced on the cover and p. 151; William Ritchie, “The Modern Atelier,” in Leslie Boyd Ryan, Cape Dorset Prints: A Retrospective, (San Francisco: Pomegranate, 2007), p. 223. The print is illustrated next to a photograph of Pitseolak Niviaqsi pulling an edition of the work from the press.