Qinnuayuak, Lucy

Lucy Qinnuayuak

Lucy Qinnuayuak, artist (b near Sugluk, Qué 1915?; d at Cape Dorset, NWT 10 Sept 1982). One of the most popular Inuit graphic artists, noted primarily for fanciful arctic birds, Lucy began to draw in the late 1950s at the time James Houston started Inuit Printmaking experiments at Cape Dorset. "We would draw our art in camp and then when a dog-team went to Cape Dorset to get supplies we would take our drawings and give them to Saumik" (ie, to Houston).

Well over 100 of her drawings have appeared as prints; the stone for her early Large Bear (1961) was donated to the Tate Gallery, London, by admirer Sir Charles Gimpel and is displayed at the Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge. Widely collected, her work has appeared on an Olympic banner and in many exhibitions.