NORTHERN BOOKSHELF
Great reads for all ages Creation and Transformation: Defining Moments in Inuit Art
People of the Deer
Winnipeg Art Gallery, Douglas & McIntyre, 2012
arley Mowat, Douglas & McIntyre, 2012
The treasures of the world’s largest public collection of Inuit art are revealed in this seminal history of art from the Arctic. The collection of Inuit art held by the Winnipeg Art Gallery, one of Canada’s most important public galleries, is extraordinary by any standard: its geographic range, diverse media and size have brought international attention to the collection of some 11,000 artworks. The WAG celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2012-13 and this book will feature many of the gallery’s treasures as it marks this important milestone. Creation and Transformation is a major art book that describes the genesis and evolution of contemporary Inuit art from 1949 to the present day: from carvers in the 1950s to later storytellers in stone, and in whalebone from pioneer graphic artists to more modern day graphic artists. Organized chronologically, this remarkable volume will constitute a new historical narrative of a contemporary art form as revealed in essays by international authorities led by Winnipeg Art Gallery’s curator of Inuit art, Darlene Coward Wight, and explored through the personal insights of the artists themselves.This book also features 150 colour and archival images.
The most powerful book to come out of he Arctic, People of he Deer traces the material and spiritual bonds between land, deer and people. In 886, the Ihalmiut of northern Canada numbered 7,000 souls; by 1946, when 25-year-old Farley Mowat travelled to the Arctic, their population had dwindled to only 40. Living among them, he observed the millennia-old migration of the caribou and endured the bleak winters, food shortages and continual devastating intrusions of interlopers bent on exploiting the Arctic.
The Last Viking: The Life of Roald Amundsen Stephen R. Bown, Douglas & McIntyre, 2012 In the early 1900s, many of the great geographical mysteries that had intrigued adventurers for centuries remained unsolved. The Polar Regions — the Northwest Passage, the South Pole, the North Pole and the Northeast Passage would be, however, claimed by one man within a span of 20 years. Roald Amundsen was an adventurer, entertainer, organizer and planner, willing to learn from the mistakes of others, and humble enough to seek advice of indigenous peoples skilled in Arctic survival. Amundsen’s life was one of sharp contrasts: reviled by the British for defeating Robert Falcon Scott in a desperate race to the South Pole, loved by his men, hailed as a hero in his native Norway and dolized as a charming and eccentric celebrity in the United States. Drawing on hundreds of recently uncovered press clippings, The Last Viking goes beyond Amundsen’s conflicted legacy, revealing a humorous, self-deprecating storyteller who had unusual opinions and dreams; a visionary and showman who won over both his sponsors and his audiences with the same verve that characterized his geographical conquests.
November/December 2012
above & beyond
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