Inuit Art Prints from Kinngait (Cape Dorset): A Collector's Guide
Inuit art from Kinngait, the community in Nunavut long known as Cape Dorset, has a special place in our gallery. The original prints created there are made by hand in stonecut, stencil, etching and lithography, in a studio that has worked continuously since the late 1950s. In this guide I would like to explain how printmaking began in Kinngait, how each technique works, how to read the marks on a genuine artwork, and which artists you can see in our collection today.
Kinngait and Cape Dorset: one community, two names
Kinngait is a hamlet on Dorset Island, off the southeast coast of the Foxe Peninsula of Baffin Island. For many years it was known in English as Cape Dorset, and in February 2020 the community officially returned to its Inuktut name, Kinngait. Because the change is recent, much of the literature on these works, including the artists' biographies on our own listings, still refers to Cape Dorset. Both names describe the same community and the same print studio.
Inuit is the collective term for the original Indigenous inhabitants of Canada's Arctic and subarctic regions, and in Inuktut, the Inuit language, the word means "the people". A single person is an Inuk.
How printmaking began in Kinngait
Printmaking experiments began in the community in 1957, and the first prints were issued in 1959. Much of the success of those formative years is credited to James Houston, an artist from Toronto who spent the better part of a decade in Cape Dorset from 1952. The work was organized through the West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative, as the co-operative is still formally named, and its print studio, known today as Kinngait Studios, is the longest continuously running print studio in Canada.
Every year since 1959, the studio has released an annual catalogued collection of between 30 and 60 images, as well as commissions and special releases. Kananginak Pootoogook's first print, a collaborative image with his father, Pootoogook, was included in the first catalogued collection of Cape Dorset prints in 1959, and his work appeared in all but three of the annual collections that followed.
How Inuit art prints are made
At Kinngait, an original print is usually a collaboration between the artist, who creates the drawing, and the studio printmakers, who translate it into the chosen medium and print the edition. This departs from the older convention that an artist must work directly on the stone or plate, but the result is an original print in its own right: as the Inuit Art Quarterly describes it, the printmakers' work is to create "original works of art that remain true, in content and style, to the original drawing". Our page on the printing techniques of Inuit artists describes each technique in more detail.
Stonecut
In the early years the studio produced a few small editions of sealskin stencils, but the process proved cumbersome and limiting. It was then discovered that the local carving stone was an ideal medium for relief printing, and the stonecut became the most common technique in Cape Dorset. The stonecutter outlines the traced drawing on a prepared stone in India ink and cuts away everything that is not meant to print, leaving the image raised. The raised areas are inked with rollers, and a thin sheet of paper, usually fine handmade Japanese paper, is laid over the stone and pressed gently by hand with a small padded disc. Only one print can be made from each inking, so an edition requires considerable time and patience.
Stencil
Today the studio uses water-resistant stencil paper. The printmaker cuts the image into the stencil with a very sharp knife, lays it directly on the printing paper, and taps the ink through the openings with a thick stencil brush, using a separate stencil for each colour. Stencil is often combined with stonecut to create subtle tonal and colour variations, as in Kananginak Pootoogook's Walrus in Pressure Ice, a stonecut and stencil from 1989.
Etching and aquatint
Intaglio techniques, including copper engraving and etching, have also been part of the Kinngait Studios' work. In an etching, the image is drawn through an acid-resistant ground on a metal plate and bitten in an acid bath, and aquatint is often added to create areas of tone. Our Secrets of Printmaking page explains the intaglio techniques in general.
Lithography
Lithography was introduced at the Kinngait Studios in the early 1970s. Unlike stonecut and etching, it requires no cutting. The design is drawn on a limestone block or an aluminium plate with grease pencils or a greasy liquid, and because water repels the greasy ink, the ink stays only within the areas of the original drawing.
How to read the marks on a Kinngait original print
A Kinngait original print carries several marks, and it helps to know what each of them means.
- Signature, title and numbering. Once the studio has printed the edition, the artist usually signs each work beneath the image, where it is also numbered, and the works in our collection are titled as well. Occasionally these details appear on the back; for example, Saimaiyu Akesuk's lithograph Hot Spider is signed, titled and numbered on the reverse.
- The edition. The first Cape Dorset prints were usually issued in editions of 30, while today the norm is 50. Almost every Inuit work in our collection comes from an edition of 50.
- The igloo chop. A small stamp in the shape of a stylized igloo is the symbol of the West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative and identifies the work as created at the Kinngait studio.
- The printmaker's chop. Usually, each print is also signed or stamped with the name of the printmaker. On many of our listings this appears as the printmaker's blind stamp or dry stamp, an embossed mark made without ink.
Some earlier works may also carry the syllabics stamp or blind-embossed symbol of the Canadian Eskimo Arts Council, a body that no longer exists, which indicated that a work was authentic and met approved standards. Every work in our gallery comes with a Certificate of Authenticity, and as our Authenticity page explains, all of the artwork we offer is original and we carry no reproductions of any kind.
Inuit art in our collection
Our collection brings together several generations of Kinngait artists, and a few of them illustrate the range particularly well.
Kananginak Pootoogook (1935–2010) was one of the four original printers of the studio and was instrumental in forming the West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative, serving for many years as President of its Board. Arctic wildlife was his subject from the beginning. Walrus in Pressure Ice measures 24.4" x 30.3", is from an edition of 50, bears the printmaker's blind stamp, and is $1,200.
Pitseolak Ashoona (c. 1904–1983) was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 1974 and appointed to the Order of Canada in 1977. Geese Surprised by Man, a 1965 stonecut from an edition of 50 with the studio stamp, is $700.
Pudlo Pudlat (1916–1992) said of his work in the 1978 Cape Dorset catalogue: "I only draw what I think, but sometimes I think the pencil has a brain too." We have several of his works, including the 1976 stonecut and stencil Seamaiden and the 1987 lithograph Caribou in Northern Lights, each $1,000.
Shuvinai Ashoona (born 1961) first appeared in the annual collection in 1997 with two small drypoint etchings. In 2022 she received a Special Mention at the Venice Biennale, and in 2024 the Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts. Holding onto Baby Kamiks (2023) is an etching with hand-colouring measuring 31.5" x 44.5", from a variable edition of 10, signed, titled and numbered, at $2,500.
Qavavau Manumie (born 1958) has worked for Kinngait Studios as a printmaker in both the lithography and the stonecut studios. His stonecut and stencil Rebirth (2023) carries the igloo stamp and the print studio dry stamp, and is $1,000. Saimaiyu Akesuk (born 1988) is known for her confident drawings of birds and bears; Hot Spider (2015) is $900.
For a first acquisition, Young Inuk by Sita Saila (born 1947), a 2020 etching and aquatint from an edition of 50, is $300. Sita Saila began carving stone sculptures in 1964 and took up drawing only in 2015.
Buying Inuit art in Vancouver
You can browse the full Inuit art collection online, but I warmly invite anyone in or visiting Vancouver to see these works in person, as the texture of a stonecut on Japanese paper is much easier to appreciate on the wall than on a screen. The gallery is at Canada Place, inside the Pan Pacific Hotel, and we are open Tuesday to Sunday, 11 am to 6 pm. For collectors further away, we ship worldwide, professionally packed and fully insured.
Frequently asked questions
Is Cape Dorset the same as Kinngait?
Yes. Kinngait is the Inuktut name of the hamlet on Dorset Island, off Baffin Island in Nunavut, that was known in English as Cape Dorset. The community officially returned to the name Kinngait in February 2020. Earlier documentation and much of the literature still use Cape Dorset, and the print studio there is known as Kinngait Studios.
How can I tell if a Cape Dorset print is authentic?
A Kinngait original print is signed by the artist and numbered, and it usually carries the studio's igloo chop together with the printmaker's chop, which on many works is an embossed blind stamp. Some earlier works also carry the symbol of the former Canadian Eskimo Arts Council. Buy from a gallery that provides a Certificate of Authenticity and full details of the technique, date and edition.
How much do Inuit art prints cost?
Prices depend on the artist, the technique, the size, the edition and the condition of the work. In our collection, most original Kinngait prints are priced between $300 and $1,200, while Shuvinai Ashoona's hand-coloured etching Holding onto Baby Kamiks is $2,500. Every work comes with a Certificate of Authenticity.