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CROSS CURRENTS |
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The world is already familiar with the fame of the Cape Dorset artists from the 1960s. Still, questions surface: Why were these artists so successful? Why then? How were so many great talents uncovered in such a short time, from such a small population? The seeds of all the subsequent success of Cape Dorset art were sewn during the formative years of the West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative. At once entirely Inuit, these sculptures and graphics often seem to transcend time, place and culture. Perhaps they speak to us this clearly because they hover so close to the ideal of art as pure concept, unencumbered by formal teaching and traditional western art theory. The first experimental prints were made in 1957-58. Following the success of the first Cape Dorset print collection in 1959, a co-operative was formed to facilitate the ongoing arts projects. Everyone was encouraged to make drawings on paper to provide images for the early prints. The results were immediate. The Inuit embraced these foreign flat white sheets of paper and poured onto them images, fully-formed and spectacular, of spirits, animals, and the minutiae of daily life. The carvers of the 1960s worked with rounded forms or sharp details, each developing an individual visual language. Works by many artists are instantly-recognizable and stand today as 'signatures' for all of Cape Dorset sculpture. Some thoughts seem better suited to drawing, others to the three-dimensions of stone. Certain images seem to haunt the artist, emerging again and again, regardless of the medium chosen. Cross-influence is often evident between artists who worked closely together, such as husband and wife, or parent and child. Cape Dorset art from the 1960s includes rare examples of exploratory work in one medium by artists who went on to later fame for work in a completely different medium. ~Please contact us for information about the exhibition catalogue, with colour reproductions of all the works and an introductory essay by Terry Ryan.
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