The widowed Jessie Oonark and her youngest daughter Nancy Pukingrnak were rescued from certain starvation by an RCAF plane on March 7, 1958, and flown to Baker Lake (William Noah, her youngest surviving child, had walked to Baker Lake to alert the authorities about the family’s predicament). Oonark quickly found a husband for Pukingrnak, but rather than remarry herself, she chose to take on cleaning and janitorial jobs and took in boarders. Noah attended the local school. In her essay in the 1986 WAG catalogue, Jessie Oonark: A Retrospective, Marie Bouchard writes:

“Oonark first expressed a desire to make images on paper after observing school children making drawings in class. She casually remarked to the teacher that given the proper materials she could make superior drawings. Baker Lake did not have a formal art program at this time and it is not known whether the teacher indulged Oonark’s artistic whim. In the summer of 1959, however, Oonark met Dr. Andrew Macpherson, a biologist with the Canadian Wildlife Service who was in Baker Lake to study arctic foxes. Intrigued by Oonark’s self -assured comment, relayed to him by the schoolteacher, and equally dismayed by the abject poverty in which Oonark lived, Macpherson offered her some of his own art supplies and promised to pay her for her efforts. Handing Oonark two large sheets of art paper and some coloured pencils, he encouraged her to draw whatever she desired” [p. 16, our italics].

In her essay for the same catalogue Jean Blodgett writes:

“As Macpherson recalls, Oonark had informed the teacher that ‘given the proper materials, she could make superior drawings’ to those done by the children in school (p. 16). Oonark’s statement, consistent with descriptions of her self-assurance, may simply reflect her confidence or it may indicate that she had already made some attempts at drawing. If so, no evidence of this work has come to light” [p. 29].

Until now. We now know that the schoolteacher, Bernard Mullen, did, in fact, “indulge Oonark’s artistic whim.” We now know that what Blodgett and Bouchard suspected might have conceivably happened, actually occurred. This drawing, given to Mr. Mullen by Oonark herself - made on school art paper and with pencils provided by him - is almost certainly her very first drawing, and therefore one of the most important and exciting discoveries in the history of Inuit art.

Stylistically, this drawing makes perfect sense as an immediate precursor to the earliest drawings made for Dr. Macpherson (see WAG catalogue, pp. 73, 94-95). The image is dominated by profile views of two large figures, male and female. They are not only larger than the other human and animal figures, they are also expertly drawn; their facial features and especially their clothing is rendered with considerable accuracy and detail. Oonark’s interest in clothing patterns and tattoo designs is already apparent. A charming touch is the tiny head of an infant protruding from the mother’s pouch. By comparison, the other human and animal figures are depicted in rather more rudimentary fashion but interestingly, we see the artist’s clear interest in depicting activities. The hunter wielding a knife seems to be pursuing an already wounded wolf, while below a woman tends her qulliq inside the igloo while her husband apparently attends to a tethered dog. The igloo, of course, would become another constant image in Oonark’s oeuvre. As with the great majority of early images by Oonark (right through the 1960s), the emphasis is on narrative rather than symbolism. The drawing is a lovely nostalgic remembrance of happier times on the land.

Literature: For illustrations of very early Oonark drawings dated 1959-60, made for A.H. Macpherson, see the landmark exhibition catalogue by Jean Blodgett and Marie Bouchard, Jessie Oonark: A Retrospective (Winnipeg Art Gallery, 1986), pp. 73, 94-95.