Pudlo Pudlat's childhood experiences with drawing were inside an igloo, making images on snow walls and ice windows. Around 1960, as an adult living in the settlement of Cape Dorset, Pudlo began to draw again, this time on paper, as part of that community's growing arts program. When he died in 1992, Pudlo left an oeuvre of more than 4,000 drawings and 200 prints. Today, he remains as one of Canada's most celebrated and intriguing Inuit artists.

Pudlo Pudlat (1916-1992) used drawing as a means of thinking on paper. Those thoughts frequently explored the themes of architecture, technology and transportation as they related to the changing North. However, even at the earliest stages of his career, Pudlo's tendency to treat an idea through a series of images also took another route; many of his drawings and prints focus as much on matters of design and composition as on the narrative content.

Pudlo Pudlat is one of the most well known of all Inuit artists. Born near Kamadjuak on February 4, 1915, he spent a large part of his life participating in the traditional ways of his people. In the 1960s, he established himself permanently in Cape Dorset, a community located on the southwest tip of Baffin Island.

Pudlo began his artistic career as a sculptor, but soon realized that he wanted to devote himself solely to drawing, painting and printmaking. Pudlo used quite modest drawing materials: graphite pencils, colored pencils, felt-tipped markers and acrylic paints (acrylic paints were introduced to Cape Dorset in the 1970's by Kate Graham). Pudlo's mastering of the tools available to him, as well as his evocative power to depict relationships between the real and the imaginary, is where his extraordinary talent resides. Pudlo went beyond what the eye sees, transcending to an intimate and poetic universe of images of daily life which are maintained and enhanced by deep traditional and cultural understanding and knowledge. However, as connected as he was to his traditional culture, he was also fascinated by newer technologies. He was one of few Inuit artists to depict modern realities of the north such as air travel and power boats.

Information provided by the National Gallery of Canada