SHEOJUK ETIDLOOIE (1932-1999) KINNGAIT (CAPE DORSET)
Bird in Winter Night, 1999 #29
Printmaker: PITSEOLAK NIVIAQSI R.C.A. (1947-2015) KINNGAIT (CAPE DORSET)
lithograph, 30 x 22.25 in (76.2 x 56.5 cm), framed
46/50

Provenance
Collection of John and Joyce Price, Seattle.

Sheojuk Etidlooie drew for a short time in the 1960s, with only one print appearing in the 1966 Cape Dorset collection. Her artistic endeavours lay dormant until 1993, when she won a prize for a drawing at a local church event. At the request of Jimmy Manning at the West Baffin Co-op, Sheojuk took up drawing again. Her childlike yet sophisticated and surprisingly modern-looking images of animals and everyday objects were a huge hit, and Sheojuk became one of the stars of the annual Cape Dorset print collections. Her art career was short but powerful and gained her a reputation as an artist of bold and colourful interpretation. Many of her most famous prints were etchings and aquatints printed by Studio PM in Montreal, but this striking image was printed as a lithograph on black paper by the esteemed Pitseolak Niviaqsi (see Lot 29). Bird in Winter Night was one of the last of her prints to be included in an annual collection; the solitary bird, surprisingly soft against the stark, black background, has an almost luminescent quality, shining in the moonlight as it peers towards the sky.

References: For biographical information and other works by the artist, see First Arts, The Graphic Art of Sheojuk Etidlooie, exh. 26 Jan - 22 February 2021. For similar works by the artist see the First Arts online exhibition Etching and Aquatint: Free Flowing Experimentation, September-October 2020, viewable on www.firstarts.ca.