ANNIE POOTOOGOOK – 1969-2016

Annie Pootoogook was the first woman and first Indigenous artist to win the preeminent Sobey Art Award in 2006.

She began drawing in 1997 under the encouragement of the West Baffin Eskimo Cooperative in Cape Dorset. She quickly developed a preference for drawing scenes from her own life. She is the daughter of Napatchie and Eegyvudluk Pootoogook, and the granddaughter of renowned artist Pitseolak Ashoona.  Pootoogook was influenced by her mother’s graphics and the detailed drawings and prints of her uncle, Kananginak Pootoogook.

The artist’s work challenged conventional expectations of Inuit art. “Annie Pootoogook was a remarkable artist and a true pioneer—her works contributed immensely in the transition of traditional Inuit work into the contemporary realm,” said Sarah Fillmore, Chief Curator at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. Her subjects were not Arctic animals or scenes of nomadic existence from a time before settlement life; she was instead a chronicler of her times.  Pootoogook filled her drawings with the banal accoutrements of daily life—clocks, calendars, graduation photos, inspirational quotes, and Inuktitut messages taped to the fridge in modern Inuit homes—and images of everyday routine. Her work also dealt with everyday struggles of addiction, poverty, and boredom in the Canadian North.

Several of Pootoogook’s works are in the Gallery’s Permanent Collection and have been featured in recent exhibitions, including Contemporaries (2008), Inside Out (2010-2011), Northern Exposure (2014), and currently on view in Halifax in Shifting Ground, an exhibition charting the changing currents in contemporary Aboriginal art across Canada as seen through the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia’s collection. Throughout this period, some works have also been lent to and exhibited nationally and internationally.

Annie Pootoogook, Showing a Drawing, 2001-2002, wax pastel and ink on Ragston paper, 66.0 x 50.9 cm.

Purchased with funds provided by the Exxon Mobil Corporation, 2007.

Annie Pootoogook, Composition (Family Cooking in Kitchen), 2002, wax pastel and graphite on Somerset paper, 76.4 x 111.6 cm.

Purchased with funds provided by the Exxon Mobil Corporation, 2007.

Annie Pootoogook, At the Social Services Office, 2003, wax pastel and ink on paper, 51.0 x 66.3 cm.

Purchased with funds provided by the Sobey Art Foundation, Stellarton, Nova Scotia, 2007.

Annie Pootoogook, Man Talking on CB Radio, 2003-2004, wax pastel and ink on Ragston paper, 45.1 x 66.5 cm.

Purchased with funds made available from the Jane Shaw Law Endowment Fund, 2007.

Annie Pootoogook, Living Room, 2006, wax pastel and ink on paper, 44.9 x 66.3 cm.