Birds of all kinds are perhaps Kananginak’s favourite subjects. It was his detailed and lifelike images of birds that prompted the artist’s nickname “Audubon of the North.” Kananginak was one of the original four young printmakers trained by James Houston in the late 1950s; he continued to work as a printmaker for decades, and created drawings right up to the year of his death in 2010.

Kananginak is admired not only for his skill in depicting the subtle details of the animals he knew and loved so well, but also for his deep knowledge of animal behaviour and movements. This breadth of knowledge is absolutely evident in this delightful print, Arctic Murres. Kananginak succinctly expresses the look of these remarkable birds, with their “tuxedo-like” plumage (which is why they are sometimes mistaken for penguins), but he also vividly captures the noisy cacophony of a crowded murre colony.