Pudlo: Thirty Years of Drawing

Patricia Morley is a professor of English and Canadian Studies at
Concordia University, an associate fellow of the Simone de Beauvoir
Institute, and author of Margaret Laurence: The Long Journey Home.

Over the past decade, the National Gallery has steadily added to its
collection of contemporary Inuit art, which now includes more than 1000
prints, drawings, sculptures, and hangings. Pudlo: Thirty Years of
Drawing is the catalogue for an exhibition the Gallery organized to
celebrate this major Inuit artist whose work has come of age in the last
15 years.

Pudlo was one of the first Inuit artists to incorporate images of
modern technology in the North, such as airplanes and helicopters.
However, the energy in his work and the vision behind it come from a
premodern way of life that is linked to the land and its sustaining
creatures.

Routledge’s long essay, “Thinking on Paper,” is both biographical
and critical, as befits an artist who draws heavily on personal
experience: “To appreciate Pudlo’s imagery one must understand the
spirit of enquiry that fuels it, for it is through drawing that Pudlo
has been able to reflect upon and synthesize his own encounters with the
world.” Jackson has recorded many interviews with Pudlo, and her
lively 30-page essay, “Looking Back,” draws heavily on these.
Pudlo’s words are set in brown ink, an effective device that makes for
smooth reading.

The book has scores of black-and-white photographs of Pudlo at work in
Cape Dorset, and of his magnificent drawings. There are also a few color
plates.

Pudlo: Thirty Years of Drawing is a handsome collection of images with
substantial text written by two women who respect and love this
artist’s work.