: The Rockwell Museum of Western Art will present, as the last of
four special exhibitions this year, "Cultural Reflections: Inuit
Art from the Collection of the Dennos Museum Center," November
4-May 29.
This exhibition will give viewers the opportunity to view the
evolution of the dynamic Inuit culture still in process and to
experience the native culture of the icy Canadian Artic through
collections of contemporary sculpture, prints and drawings by
Inuit artists. The collection is a reflection of life on the
land; a record of daily events and serves as a visual narrative
for keeping alive the old ways; the old life of skin tents and
snow houses, the nomadic life when seasonal hunting dictated
lifestyle and, in essence, survival.
The Dennos collection boasts one of the largest and most
historically complete public collections of Inuit contemporary
art by the Inuit artists of the Canadian Arctic to be found in
the United States. This major collection is permanently showcased
at Northwestern Michigan College in Traverse City, Mich.
The works in "Cultural Reflections" present a survey of Inuit
stone cut, stencil and lithograph prints, and sculptures from the
late 1950s to the present. Selected from more than 1,000 objects
in the museum's permanent collection, the exhibition features
artists from numerous communities within Nunavut, the new
Canadian territory. As a whole, the exhibition is intended to
reveal the vision and scope of contemporary Inuit art, not only
through first generation masters such as Parr, Pudlo Pudlat,
Kenojuak Ashevak, and Kananginak, to name a few, but "second
generation" artists as well.
Worldwide awareness of Inuit art originated with the assistance
of James Houston, noted artist, author and designer for Steuben
Glass, who collected small carvings made by Canada's aboriginal
(Inuit) peoples in the late 1940s. He brought the sculptures to
southern Canada where they were subsequently sold to support the
economic needs of the Inuit people.
Harry Egutak and Mona Ohoveluk, "Fishing with Spear and Lure,"
1978, stonecut, 8/50, 18 by 24 inches.
In 1953 James Houston solicited support from his friend,
Eugene Power, who was born in Traverse City, to help import Inuit
art into the United States. Power, who owned and operated
University Microfilms in Ann Arbor, Mich., established a nonprofit
gallery called Eskimo Art Incorporated to import the work. He
encouraged the Cranbrook Institute of Science to host the first
exhibition of Inuit art in the United States in 1953.
In 1960 Wilbur Munnecke of Field Enterprises in Chicago, who was
on the board of Eskimo Inc, gave Northwestern Michigan College
(NMC) in Traverse City a small collection of sculpture and prints
to sell and Bernie Rink, director of the library, used proceeds
from the sale to purchase some of the work. Thus began the
collection of Inuit art.
The exhibition will open with a reception at 5:30 pm on
November 3 at the Rockwell Museum of Western Art, which is on the
corner of Denison Parkway and Cedar Street. The reception is open
to the public' reservations can be made by calling 607-974-2333.
Visit rockwellmuseum.org for more information.
