Pitseolak Ashoona was born in 1904 (or 1907) on Nottingham Island in the eastern Arctic's Hudson Strait while her immediate family was travelling from Sugluk (Salluit) on the north coast of Arctic Quebec to the south of Baffin Island. Her first-hand experience living on the land would figure prominently in her artwork. Pitseolak's immediate family included her mother Timungiak, three brothers and a sister, as well as her father Ottochie from whom she learned Inuit legends.

Ashoona would become one of the most prolific of Inuit artists producing over 7,000 drawings in 25 years. Two hundred of her drawings were made into prints and many became a part of the annual Cape Dorset print collections.

Pitseolak's artistic legacy would also continue through her children. She was a mother to 17 children of whom six lived to adulthood. Her adult children also became artists. Her sons are the stone carvers Konwartok (Kumwartok), Ottochie, Kiawak, Namoonie, and Qaqaq (Kaka). Her daughter is Napachie Pootoogook (Napadive or Nawpachee Poottoogook), a graphic artist.  Pitseolak is the grandmother of the artist Ohito Ashoona and is, herself, the niece of the artist Kiakshuk.

In her youth Pitseolak would move with her family from camp to camp near to sites now known as Iqaluit and Kinngait. The family's movements would be dictated by the seasons and the migration of game. Her life would change dramatically when her father died suddenly while she was a teenager. Her three brothers arranged a marriage for her to a young hunter named Ashoona in 1922.

As her family had earlier, she and her husband would also live a traditional lifestyle following caribou herds. In the 1940s Pitseolak would lose her husband, who was in his 40s, to one of the epidemics affecting the North at that time. She was left with young children to raise;  her family and other hunters helped her provide for her children.

Pitseolak was quoted as saying about that time in her life: "After my husband died, I felt alone and unwanted. Making prints is what made me the happiest since he died." Taking advantage of a government-sponsored move to permanent settlements during the 1950s Pitseolak would settle in Cape Dorset.

To earn a living and support her children Pitseolak began making clothing such as parkas at the West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative. The work was hard and did not pay well, she would receive $12 for each parka she made.

James Houston, an administrator with Northern Affairs, established this first Inuit-owned co-operative. The co-op would give the residents of Cape Dorset, like Pitseolak, a place to produce and market their art from. Profits were shared among members.

With Houston's encouragement Pitseolak made her first attempts at creating art, in her fifties. While she enjoyed drawing Pitseolak did not enjoy working with copper plates, one of the first mediums she was introduced to. Inspired by the example of her uncle, Kiakshuk, Pitseolak tried her hand at drawing. Her first attempts were drawings of monsters for which Houston paid $20. He advised her to choose as her subject matter the traditional lifestyle she had experienced as a child and through her early adulthood.

Through her association with the co-op Pitseolak would prosper with her drawing. She would later encourage her daughters-in-law, Mayoureak and Sorsilitu, to draw, telling them "You'll have a little income of your own."

Pitseolak's artwork is seen as falling into two distinct sets of imagery that occasionally overlapped. In one set the drawings and prints are more narrative and show the traditional Inuit lifestyle. The landscapes that appear in these works are "semi-representational" and illustrate activities such as travelling by various means, living in skin tents, and day-to-day life.

The second set of images originate solely from Pitseolak's imagination and include images of: "spirits, monsters, strangely shaped sea creatures and extravagantly feathered birds" and representations of the spiritual world. These images have been compared to the work of Kiakshuk.

Piseolak's style has been described as "lively, lighthearted, with humour and joy" with a "strong sense of design, balance, colour and energy." She would be among the first in Cape Dorset to try drawing as a means to earn a living and would become the most prolific.  "I became an artist to earn money, but I think I am a real artist."

Pitseolak's first drawings were made with graphic pencil but she would change to coloured pencil crayons and felt markers when they became available. As an artist she would explore a range of media, including acrylics, but coloured felt tipped pens would remain her favourite medium.

She began printmaking, under Houston, in the 1950s. Her earliest prints were stonecuts consisting of images of "solid black or green" 'silhouettes' of figures against a white background. During the years of the mid-1960s to the early 1970s she made engravings slightly tinged with a restricted colour palette of one or two colours.

In the later 1960s she also tried stonecuts which involved more colours as well as lithographs. It has been argued by one observer that her "finest image" of her career and possibly the "most outstanding in the history of northern two-dimensional art" was her 1970 print entitled Festive Bird, a colour stonecut on laid paper printed by Kananginak Pootoogak (60.8 x 85.2cm).

"To make prints is not easy." Pitseolak observed, "You must think first and this is hard to do. But I am happy doing the prints...I am going to keep on doing them until they tell me to stop...I shall make them as long as I am well. If I can, I'll make then [sic] even after I am dead."

Pitseolak would be a part of over 100 group and solo exhibitions during her lifetime. Her life and art would be the subject of two books and many academic and magazine articles. As well, her story would be made into a National Film Board of Canada animated documentary. 

Looking back on her life Pitseolak observed: "I know I have had an unusual life, being born in a skin tent and living to hear on the radio that two men have lived on the moon."

Sources:
1 www.canadianstudies.ca/NewJapan/inuitartists.html
2 www.canadianstudies.ca/NewJapan/inuitartists.html
3 www.canadahouse.ca
4 Dorothy Eber, 1971, Pitseolak: Pictures Out of My Life, Toronto: Oxford University
5 www.inac.gc.ca
6 www.inac.gc.ca
 

Exhibitions

• A Collector's Feast, Snow Goose Associates
• A New Day Dawning: Early Cape Dorset Prints, University of Michigan
• Arctic Mirror, Canadian Museum of Civilization
• Arctic Spirit 35 Years of Canadian Inuit Art, Frye Art Museum
• Arctic Stories by Pitseolak Ashoona: Graphics from 1962-1980, Arctic Artistry
• Arctic Vision: Art of the Canadian Inuit, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and Canadian Arctic Producers
• ART ESKIMO, Galerie de France
• Art Inuit, Presented by l'Iglou Art Esquimau, Douai at Galerie Montador
• Art Inuit: Autour de la Collection de Cape Dorset 1991, Presented by l'Iglou Art Esquimau, Douai at Le Colombier
• Birds: Sculpture from Cape Dorset & Rock Ptarmigan Limited Edition Print by Kananginak, The Guild Shop
• Canadian Eskimo Art: a representative exhibition from the collection of Professor and Mrs. Philip Gray, Fine Arts Gallery, Montana State University
• Canadian Eskimo Arts Festival, Alaska Methodist University Galleries
• Cape Dorset - A Decade of Eskimo Prints & Recent Sculpture, National Gallery of Canada, in cooperation with the Canadian Eskimo Art Committee
• Cape Dorset Drawings, Godard Editions
• Cape Dorset Engravings, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
• Cape Dorset Engravings, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, circulated by the Art Gallery of Ontario
• Cape Dorset Engravings and Etchings from the Sixties, Arctic Artistry
• Cape Dorset Graphics *60, (annual collection)
• Cape Dorset Graphics *61, (annual collection)
• Cape Dorset Graphics *62, (annual collection)
• Cape Dorset Graphics *63, (annual collection)
• Cape Dorset Graphics *64/65, (annual collection)
• Cape Dorset Graphics *66, (annual collection)
• Cape Dorset Graphics *67, (annual collection)
• Cape Dorset Graphics *68, (annual collection)
• Cape Dorset Graphics *69, (annual collection)
• Cape Dorset Graphics *70, (annual collection)
• Cape Dorset Graphics *71, (annual collection)
• Cape Dorset Graphics *72, (annual collection)
• Cape Dorset Graphics *73, (annual collection)
• Cape Dorset Graphics *74, (annual collection)
• Cape Dorset Graphics *75, (annual collection)
• Cape Dorset Graphics *76, (annual collection)
• Cape Dorset Graphics *77, (annual collection)
• Cape Dorset Graphics *78, (annual collection)
• Cape Dorset Graphics *79, (annual collection)
• Cape Dorset Graphics *80, (annual collection)
• Cape Dorset Graphics *81, (annual collection)
• Cape Dorset Graphics *82, (annual collection)
• Cape Dorset Graphics *83, (annual collection)
• Cape Dorset Printmaking 1959-1989, McMichael Canadian Collection
• Cape Dorset Prints: Twenty-Five Years, National Gallery of Canada
• Cape Dorset Revisited, McMichael Canadian Art Collection
• Cape Dorset Revisited - a collection of previously unreleased prints, exhibited at selected commercial galleries, organized by, West Baffin Eskimo Co-op
• Cape Dorset Sculptures and Engravings, McMichael Canadian Art Collection
• Cape Dorset Through the Years: 25 Years of Graphics and Sculpture, Arctic Artistry
• Cape Dorset, First Generation Printers: Engravings 1962-1963, Albers Gallery
• Carvings and Prints by the Family of Pitseolak, Robertson Galleries
• Contemporary Canadian Eskimo Art, Gimpel Fils
• Contemporary Indian and Inuit Art of Canada, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, Ottawa, presented at the General Assembly Building, United Nations
• Contemporary Inuit Art, National Gallery of Canada
• Contemporary Inuit Drawings, Macdonald Stewart Art Centre
• Contemporary Inuit Drawings, Muscarelle Museum of Art College of William and Mary
• Demons and Spirits and those who wrestled with them, The Arctic Circle
• Dorset: dessins originaux/original drawings, Canadian Guild of Crafts Quebec
• Drawings of the 1960s from Cape Dorset, Feheley Fine Arts in association with Gimpel Fils, London, England
• Eskimo Art, Queens Museum
• Eskimo Carvings and Prints from the Collection of York University, Art Gallery of York University
• Eskimo Games: Graphics and Sculpture/ Giuochi Eschimesi: grafiche e sculture, National Gallery of Modern Art
• Eskimo Sculpture (and Drawings), Waddington Galleries
• Espaces Inuit, Maison Hamel-Bruneau
• Exhibition of Inuit Art, Harbourfront Centre organized by the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, Guelph
• Exhibition of Inuit Art, Glenhyrst Art Gallery organized by the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, Guelph
• Festival of Birds, The Arctic Circle
• From Drawing to Print: Perceptions and Process in Cape Dorset Art, Glenbow Museum
• Graphic Art by Eskimos of Canada: First Collection, Cultural Affairs Division, Department of External Affairs, Canada
• Grasp Tight the Old Ways: Selections from the Klamer Family Collection of Inuit Art, Art Gallery of Ontario
• Hunters of Old, Inukshuk Galleries Inc.
• Hunting in the Arctic, Alberta Provincial Museum and Archives
• Im Schatten der Sonne: Zeitgenossische Kunst der Indianer und Eskimos in Kanada/In the Shadow of the Sun: Contemporary Indian and Inuit Art in Canada, Canadian Museum of Civilization
• Imaak Takujavut: The way we see it Paintings from Cape Dorset, McMichael Canadian Art Collection
• Images of the Inuit: from the Simon Fraser Collection, Simon Fraser Gallery, Simon Fraser University
• Immaginario Inuit Arte e cultura degli esquimesi canadesi, Galleria d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea
• In Cape Dorset We Do It This Way: Three Decades of Inuit Printmaking, McMichael Canadian Art Collection
• Inoonoot Eskima: Grafik och Skulptur fran Cape Dorset och Povungnituk, Konstframjandet
• Inuit Art at Rideau Hall, Presented by Indian Affairs and Northern Development
• Inuit Art from the Art Centre Collection, Macdonald Stewart Art Centre
• Inuit Art From the Glenbow Collection, Glenbow Museum
• Inuit Art in the 1970s, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, and the Agnes Etherington Art Centre
• Inuit Art: A Selection of Inuit Art from the Collection of the National Museum of Man, Ottawa, and the Rothmans Permanent Collection of Inuit Sculpture, Canada, National Museum of Man, Ottawa and Rothmans of Pall Mall Canada Ltd.
• Inuit Art: Drawings and Recent Sculpture, National Gallery of Canada
• Inuit Drawings, Inuit Gallery of Vancouver
• Inuit Drawings, Inuit Gallery of Vancouver
• Inuit Games and Contests: The Clifford E. Lee Collection of Prints, University of Alberta
• Inuit Games/Inuit Pinguangit/Jeux des inuit, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
• Inuit Graphic Art from Indian & Northern Affairs Canada, Winnipeg Art Gallery
• Inuit Graphics and Drawings from 1959-1990, Arctic Artistry
• Inuit Graphics from the Collection of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Musee des beaux-arts de Montreal
• Inuit Graphics from the Past, Arctic Artistry
• Inuit Graphics Through the Year: Rare Prints from the Arctic, Arctic Artistry
• Inuit Images in Transition, Augusta Savage Gallery, University of Massachusetts
• Inuit Masterworks: Selections from the Collection of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, McMichael Canadian Collection
• Inuit Music in Art: Singing and Dancing and Playing, Feheley Fine Arts
• Inuit Prints, University of New Brunswick Long Gallery, St. John Campus
• Inuit Survival, Enook Galleries, Waterloo, Ontario Presented at the University of Waterloo Art Gallery
• Inuit Traditions in Graphics: 1961-1987, Arctic Artistry
• Inuit Woman: Life and Legend in Art, Winnipeg Art Gallery
• Inuit Women and their Art: Graphics and Wallhangings, Gallery 210, University of Missouri
• Inuitkonst fran Kanada - skulptor och grafik, Millesgarden
• Isumavut:The Artistic Expression of Nine Cape Dorset Women, Canadian Museum of Civilization
• Kunst aus der Arktis, Volkerkundmuseum der Universitat Zurich
• Kunst van de Inuit Eskimo's, Gemeentelijk Kunstcentrum Huis Hellemans
• La deesse inuite de la mer/The Inuit Sea Goddess, Musee des beaux-arts de Montreal
• Les Eskimos/De Eskimo's, Studio 44 - Passage 44
• Members of the R.C.A., Canadian National Exhibition Association
• Mother and Child: Selections from the Inuit Collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario, Art Gallery of Ontario
• New Beginnings: a celebration of Native expression at the first Native Business Summit, Metro Toronto Convention Centre
• Noel au Chateau - Art inuit de la collection Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, Macdonald Stewart Art Centre Guelph, Ontario presented at Chateau Dufresne
• On the Land, The Arctic Circle
• Original Drawings by Nine Cape Dorset Women, Gallery of Fine Canadian Crafts
• Original Drawings from Cape Dorset by Lucy, Pitseolak, Kingmeata, Albers Gallery
• Pitseolak, Department of Indian and Northern Affairs in cooperation with the West-Baffin Eskimo Cooperative, Cape Dorset
• Pitseolak - Print Retrospective 1962-1970, Canadian Guild of Crafts Quebec
• Pitseolak Ashoona (1904-1983): An Unusual Life, Ring House Gallery, University of Alberta
• Pitseolak Drawings, The Innuit Gallery of Eskimo Art
• Pitseolak: Original Drawings, Houston North Gallery, Lunenburg in cooperation with the Canadian Book Information Centre
• Polar Vision: Canadian Eskimo Graphics, Jerusalem Artists' House Museum
• Qiviuq: A Legend in Art, Carleton University Art Gallery
• Return of the Birds, Inuit Gallery of Vancouver
• Return to Origins, The Arctic Circle
• Return to Origins II, The Arctic Circle
• Selections from the Toronto-Dominion Collection of Eskimo Art, National Arts Centre
• Shamans and Spirits: Myths and Medical Symbolism in Eskimo Art, Canadian Arctic Producers and the National Museum of Man
• Shamans and Spirits: Myths and Medical Symbolism in Eskimo Art, Arts and Learning Services Foundation (this is a duplicate of the C.A.P. and National Museum of Man exhibition of 1976-1981)
• Small Sculptures from across the Canadian Arctic, Feheley Fine Arts
• Sojourns to Nunavut: Contemporary Inuit Art from Canada, at Bunkamura Art Gallery, presented by the University of British Columbia Museum of Anthropology and The McMichael Canadian Art Collection
• Spirit of my People, Alaska Gallery of New York
• Spoken in Stone: an exhibition of Inuit Art, Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies
• Stones, Bones, Cloth, and Paper: Inuit Art in Edmonton Collections, Edmonton Art Gallery
• Summer Migration: Drawings from the late 1960s by Pitseolak Ashoona, Feheley Fine Arts
• The Art of Eskimo Women: in Sculpture, Prints, Wall-hangings, The Arctic Circle
• The Cape Dorset Print, Presented at Rideau Hall by Indian and Northern Affairs Canada
• The Coming and Going of the Shaman: Eskimo Shamanism and Art, Winnipeg Art Gallery
• The Contemporary Eskimo Prints and Sculpture, Amon Carter Museum of Western Art
• The Dorset Group of Four - Drawings and Prints by Kenojuak, Lucy, Parr and Pitseolak, Canadiana Galleries
• The Eskimo Art Collection of the Toronto-Dominion Bank, Toronto-Dominion Bank
• The Eskimo Woman: her life and dreams in prints and sculpture, The Arctic Circle
• The Inuit Amautik: I Like My Hood To Be Full, Winnipeg Art Gallery
• The Inuit Print/L'estampe inuit, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and the National Museum of Man
• The Jacqui and Morris Shumiatcher Collection of Inuit Art, Norman Mackenzie Art Gallery, University of Regina
• The Klamer Family Collection of Inuit Art from the Art Gallery of Ontario, University of Guelph
• The Last and First Eskimos, Museum of Science and History
• The Matriarchs: Jessie Oonark, Helen Kalvak, Pitseolak Ashoona, Snow Goose Associates
• The Moveable Feast, Arts and Learning Services Foundation
• The Murray and Marguerite Vaughan Inuit Print Collection, Beaverbrook Art Gallery
• The Oral Tradition, National Museum of Man
• The Spirit of the Land, The Koffler Gallery
• The Way We Were - Traditional Eskimo Life, Snow Goose Associates
• The Woodget Collection of Eskimo Art and Artifacts, Nova Scotia Museum of Fine Art
• The Year of the Bear, The Arctic Circle
• Transformation, The Arctic Circle
• Ulu/Inua: Form and Fantasy in Eskimo Art, Casino Gallery, Ravinia Park
• We Lived by Animals/Nous Vivions des Animaux, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development in cooperation with the Department of External Affairs
• Women Who Draw: 30 Years of Graphic Art from the Canadian Arctic, Feheley Fine Arts
• Works on Paper from the Permanent Collection of Inuit Art, Canadian Guild of Craft Quebec

Collections

• Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Queen's University, Kingston
• Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, Fort Worth
• Anchorage Museum of History and Art, Anchorage
• Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Victoria
• Art Gallery of Windsor, Windsor
• Art Gallery of York University, Downsview
• Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton
• Canada Council Art Bank, Ottawa
• Canadian Guild of Crafts Quebec, Montreal
• Canadian Museum of Civilization, Hull
• CIBC Collection, Toronto
• Clifford E. Lee Collection, University of Alberta, Edmonton
• Cultural Affairs Division, Department of External Affairs Canada, Ottawa
• Dennos Museum Center, Northwestern Michigan College, Traverse City
• Edmonton Art Gallery, Edmonton
• Fitzgerald Collection, Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, Banff
• Glenbow Museum, Calgary
• Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, Brown University, Bristol
• Inuit Cultural Institute, Rankin Inlet
• Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery, Kitchener
• Klamer Family Collection, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
• Laurentian University Museum and Arts Centre, Sudbury
• London Regional Art Gallery, London
• Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, Guelph
• Macmillan-Bloedel Limited, Vancouver
• McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg
• Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon
• Musee des beaux-arts de Montreal, Montreal
• Museum of Anthropology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver
• Museum of Modern Art, New York
• National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
• Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre, Yellowknife
• Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto
• Simon Fraser Gallery, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby
• Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton
• Tom Thomson Memorial Gallery and Museum of Fine Art, Owen Sound
• Toronto-Dominion Bank Collection, Toronto
• University of Alberta, Edmonton
• University of Lethbridge Art Gallery, Lethbridge
• University of New Brunswick, Fredericton
• Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver
• Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, Banff
• Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg
• Woodstock Public Art Gallery, Woodstock

Publications

• ARTISTS' SUPPLEMENT, Author: Inuit Art Quarterly, Publication: Nepean, Ont.: Inuit Art Quarterly (1990)

Accomplishments

• Pitseolak became a member of the Royal Canadian Academy in 1974
• A recipient of a Canada Council Senior Arts grant in 1975
• Order of Canada in 1977
• In 1983 her portrait was placed on a 43 cent Canadian stamp commemorating International Women's Day.