Inuit artist Pitaloosie Saila dead at 79
Kinngait artist Pitaloosie Saila, known for her stonecut prints, has died at 79 years old.
Her art is on display at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Winnipeg Art Gallery and the Canadian Museum of History, also in Ottawa. She was elected to become a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 2002 and her art has been featured on a Canada Post stamp.
Saila died on July 24.
Born in 1942 at an outpost called Keatuk, Saila lived most of her life in Kinngait. When she was young, she spent a few years at southern hospitals recovering from health problems.
Saila began producing art in the early 1960s, said former Kinngait Studios manager Jimmy Manning. He spent most of his nearly 30 years at the studio working with her.
Saila worked with a type of lithography called stonecut, where an artist chips away at a stone to create an image, then applies ink to the stone to create a number of relief prints.
