A sculptor throughout his life, Kiugak Ashoona did experiment with a small jaunt into printmaking in the early 1960s. This charming stonecut from the 1960 annual collection, a small vignette depicting an encounter between a fox and a hawk, is his first of four prints and the only one for which he cut the stone. Ever one to have his own style, Kiugak created an image that stands out in the 1960 catalogue. While the work is modest in size, the background provides a solid field of black for the outlined figures. Kiawak’s notable eye for detail comes through with scratched and incised lines along the hawk’s wings and body, and the fox’s snout. As a result, far from looking flat, the figures exhibit a quite high degree of naturalism. The inscriptions, integrated right into the printed image, are the musings of the fox as he stares up at the flapping hawk, “I will grab you ... will I not eat again?” Norman Vorano hints that the inclusion of an inscription might have been influenced by certain Japanese prints that James Houston brought to Cape Dorset [1].

1. Norman Vorano, Inuit Prints: Japanese Inspiration, 2011, p. 72.

References: This print image is illustrated in Norman Vorano, Inuit Prints: Japanese Inspiration, (Gatineau: Canadian Museum of Civilization, 2011), cat. 11, p. 72; For an overview of the life and work of the artist, including his graphic work, see Marie Routledge and Darlene Coward Wight, Kiugak Ashoona: Stories and Imaginings from Cape Dorset, (Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 2010). For more information on Kiugak’s only another stonecut print, see Helga Goetz, The Inuit Print, international travelling exhibition, (Ottawa: National Museums of Canada and the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs, 1977), pl. 30, p. 84.