Never one to shy away from bold colour and form, Jessie Oonark drew Women with Ulus as virtually a rainbow sampler of the feminine forms and symbols. In this lovely drawing the central figure of a young woman wears an eye-popping triangular dress; almost abstract, it reveals Oonark’s growing fascination with colour and design for their own sake, which evolved from her earlier interest in traditional clothing and decoration. The candy stripes of blue and orange contrast with the red and green stripes of her impressive tudliit (traditional hairsticks) that descend alongside the dress. The young woman smiles directly at the viewer, attended by two women whose clothes transform into the colourful, curved shapes of ulus (women’s knives).

Oonark’s devotion to female imagery and symbolism has been discussed at length by several scholars as a celebration of womanhood and appears in her work throughout the 1970s. Based on the particular imagery of Women with Ulus we would date the drawing to c. 1973-75. The central figure is strikingly similar to the work on cloth Woman with Braids and Ulus from 1973 that was presented that year to HRH Queen Elizabeth II on a visit to Canada. [1] Graphics from the years 1973-75 with similar or related imagery and composition include the famous 1974 print Big Woman [2], and the c. 1974 drawing Face with Ulus (see First Arts, 4 Dec. 2023, Lot 104).

1. See Ken Mantel et al., Tuvaq: Inuit Art and the Modern World, (Bristol, UK: Sansom, 2010), fig. 44, p. 54. That figure wears a long tapering dress with chevron stripes, has hairsticks, and is flanked by ulu-women.

2. See First Arts, 12 June 2023, Lot 37 (print), and Ingo Hessel, Inuit Art: An Introduction (1998), pl. 131, p. 163 (drawing).

References: For other writings on Oonark’s depictions of women see Bernadette Driscoll, "Tattoos, Hairsticks and Ulus: The Graphic Art of Jessie Oonark" in Arts Manitoba, (Fall 1984), pp. 12-19; Maureen Flynn-Burhoe, “Jessie Oonark: Woman in the Centre”, Inuit Art Quarterly, (Vol. 14, No. 2, Summer 1999), pp. 26-30. See also Robert Enright, “The Art of Jessie Oonark: Ceremonies of Innocence” in Inuit Art Quarterly, (Vol. 2, No. 14, Winter 1987), pp. 3-6. For a review of the artist’s life and work, see Jean Blodgett and Marie Bouchard, Jessie Oonark: A Retrospective, (Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 1986).