Abraham Anghik Ruben

Abraham Anghik Ruben (born 1951) is an Inuvialuk Canadian sculptor of Yup'ik descent. Ruben was born south of the hamlet of Paulatuk in the Inuvik Region east of the Mackenzie River Delta in the Northwest Territories, Canada in 1951.

He was inducted into the Order of Canada on November 17, 2016. When the American whaling ships left, Apakark and Kagun moved to the Inuvik Region, along with the families of Ruben's paternal grandfather Ruben Anghik and maternal grandfather Billy Thrasher. The rich vein of coal in the Paulatuk region had been used as fuel by the Inuit, then American whalers and missionaries, who set up their mission in 1938. He lived there for the next eleven years, until 1970. They introduced his work to the Toronto art scene over the next five years.

Ruben works with a wide variety of materials including stone and bronze.

Ruben works with a wide variety of materials including whalebone, narwal tusk, "soapstone from British Columbia, Oregon, Brazil and South Africa; alabaster from Utah, Portugal and Italy, Italian Carrara marble"

Exhibitions He had a solo show in the Bayard Gallery, New York in 1980 and another in Vancouver in 1981, "Images for a Canadian Heritage." In the 1990s he had solo exhibitions in Santa Fe and again in New York as well as a 1994 exhibition, "Abraham Anghik: Works in Bronze" at the Isaacs/Innuit Gallery in Toronto. In the 2000s, along with a 2001–2002 solo exhibition curated by Darlene Coward Wight at the Winnipeg Art Gallery which included a catalogue, he had three solos exhibitions in Idaho, "The Art of Abraham Anghik Ruben" was featured at the Appleton Galleries in Vancouver, BC. "In 2010 "Abraham Anghik Ruben: Shaman's Dreams" was held at the Art Gallery of Mississauga with an illustrated catalogue and in 2012 he had a solo exhibition at the Hazelton Fine Art Gallery, Toronto. It was shown at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian from October 2012 through January 2013 and was viewed by over 500,000 visitors.

From May to September 2014, the Rockwell Museum of Western Art in New York, a Smithsonian affiliate, hosted "The World of Man, Animals and Spirits: A Personal Interpretation" which includes about twenty sculptures in soapstone and bronze in which Ruben "contrasts the ancient lives of two northern peoples-Norse adventurers and Inuit (Inuvialuit) whale hunters-guiding us to a new perspective on the complex history of the North American Arctic, a history shaped by movement, contact, and change".

In 2014–2015 his solo exhibition, Abraham Anghik Ruben "Moving Forward: Breaking Through" was shown at the Museum Cerny Inuit Collection, Bern, Switzerland. on the theme of migration—specifically between the Inuit and the Vikings who "shared similar points of view".

In 2015–2016, "Aurora Borealis: Abraham Anghik Ruben" was shown at Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre, Yellowknife, NT.

In 2018, works by Ruben and his brother Piqtoukun were featured in the "newly-renovated, reinstalled and renamed" Art Gallery of Ontario's J. S. McLean Centre for Indigenous & Canadian Art.

In 2026, the Winnipeg Art Gallery exhibited more than 100 artworks including sculptures and paintings produced from 1975 to 2025 but placed them in context of important events in his life as well as Inuit myths and legends.

Major collections His work is in permanent collections of the dozens of public art galleries and museums including the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, the National Gallery of Canada, Canadian Museum of Civilization, Ottawa, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Winnipeg Art Gallery, and the Museum Cerny Inuit Collection, Bern Switzerland.

Awards and honours Ruben was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada on November 17, 2016, for his artistic contributions and for his preservation of Inuvialuit culture.

Personal life Since 1986, Ruben has lived on Saltspring Island, British Columbia, with his wife, Patricia Donnelly. Their son Timothy was born in 1987.