One of the most unusual prints of the 1959 Kinngait print release, Division of Meat was the only work from this suite that was essentially abstract in its representation. Its subject, however, is one that has proved enigmatic. In the original 1959 catalogue, where the images was reproduced upside down, the print is explained as a schematic diagram to indicate the division of a seal or caribou meat. In 2011, Kananginak Pootoogook intimated that Division of Meat displays how Inuit once used a wood mechanism to lift meat off the ground and away from the hungry mouths of the sled dogs [1].

Despite its resistance of easy identification, the image is clearly organized. Heavy, black lines intersect at jaunty angles to create dash and triangles that feel, somehow, classically familiar. Regardless of the interpretation Tudlik intended, recalling the images incised on to walrus tusks, the bold and abstracted composition demands our attention and stands as outstanding meditation on geometric forms.

1. Vorano, Inuit Prints: Japanese Inspiration, 2011, p. 73.

References: This print has been extensively reproduced including in: Ernst Roch ed., Arts of the Eskimo: Prints (Montreal/Toronto: Signum/Oxford, 1974), p. 30-1; The Inuit Print, international travelling exhibition, (Ottawa: National Museums of Canada and the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs, 1977), pl. 5, p. 53; Christine Lalonde and Leslie Boyd Ryan, Uuturautiit: Cape Dorset 1959-2009 (Ottawa: NGC, 2009), p. 11; Ken Mantel et al., Tuvaq: Inuit Art and the Modern World, (Bristol, UK: Sansom and Company Ltd., 2010), fig. 167, p. 168; Norman Vorano, Inuit Prints: Japanese Inspiration (Gatineau: Canadian Museum of Civilization, 2011), cat. 13, p. 73.