Napachie Pootoogook

Napachie Pootoogook (June 26, 1938 – December 18, 2002) was a Canadian Inuk graphic artist.

Life and family Napachie Pootoogook is the only daughter of acclaimed artist Pitseolak Ashoona. She was born in the Sarruq Island camp near south Baffin Island. With her mother's encouragement, Napachie began drawing in her early twenties, developing her own unique style and viewpoint. Her brothers, Kiugak and Qaqaq Ashoona, are well known sculptors. As well, two of her sisters-in-law, Mayureak and Sorosiluto Ashoona are well known graphic artists.

In the mid-1950s, Napachie entered into an arranged marriage with Eegyvudluk Pootoogook, an Inuk printmaker and carver, although the difficulties she saw in her parents' arranged marriage originally made her hesitant. The two were married in Kaiktuuq, Nunavut, then moved to Cape Dorset where they lived for most of their marriage, except for two years spent living in Iqaluit. Pootoogook and her husband had eleven children, several of whom died young. Two children died in a house fire in the early 1960s, and one of their daughters drowned soon after.

She continued to draw and make prints until her death, producing more than 5000 original works. Some of those later pieces illustrated darker aspects of Inuit life – covering themes like spousal abuse, starvation, forced marriage and infanticide.

In 1981, her work was included in an exhibition titled "Eskimo Games: Graphics and Sculpture" at the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna in Rome, Italy, and a traveling exhibition titled "Arctic Vision: Art of the Canadian Inuit" organized by the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs in Ottawa.

In 2014, Feheley Fine Arts Gallery staged an exhibition of approximately 150 drawings done by Pootoogook from 1996–2001 in an exhibit called, "Napachie Pootoogook: True North."

Museum collections Napachie Pootoogook's work is represented in the permanent collections of the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, the Glenbow Museum in Calgary, the Museum of Anthropology, University of British Columbia in Vancouver, the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, the Winnipeg Art Gallery, the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Ottawa, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Throat singing In addition to her artistic capabilities, Pootoogook was also a talented throat singer.

Death and legacy Pootoogook died of cancer in Cape Dorset at the age of 64.

Her work is included in the collections of the Inuit Art Centre of Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada, the Winnipeg Art Gallery, the Canadian Museum of History, the Royal Ontario Museum and the National Gallery of Canada, as well as private and public collections in Canada and the United States.