What Can Be Learned From the First Generation of Holman Artists?
Inuit Art Foundation | October 28, 2021
Categories: news
What Can Be Learned From the First Generation of Holman Artists?
Iqqaumaviit? Remembering the Inuit Behind the Co-ops
The Holman Eskimo Co-operative was established in 1961. World-renowned artists Helen Kalvak and Alec Aliknak Banksland worked with community priest Father Henri Tardy to establish an artist co-operative to bring in stable income for the families in the area. Seeing the overwhelming success of artists in Kinngait (Cape Dorset), NU, inspired them to send work to the Canadian Eskimo Arts Council (CEAC) and establish a working relationship with the institution.
Father Tardy noted in a 1978 interview with CEAC member Mary Sparling the work of artists like Kalvak, Banksland and Agnes Nanogak was so exceptional that when they first sent samples to be reviewed by the CEAC, the council believed the work to be too sophisticated for the Inuit artists to have produced without the artistic guidance and influence of the non-Inuit studio staff.
