Inuit art refers to artwork produced by Inuit people, that is, the people of the Arctic previously known as Eskimos, a term that is now often considered offensive outside Alaska. Historically their preferred medium was walrus ivory, but since the establishment of southern markets for Inuit art in 1945, prints and figurative works carved in relatively soft stone such as soapstone, serpentinite, or argillite have also become popular.
The Winnipeg Art Gallery in Winnipeg, Manitoba claims to have the largest collection of contemporary Inuit art in the world. In 2007, the Museum of Inuit Art opened in Toronto, Ontario.
Read more about Inuit Art: Notable Inuit Artists
Famous quotes containing the word art:
“I can’t tell you what art does and how it does it, but I know that often art has judged the judges, pleaded revenge to the innocent and shown to the future what the past suffered, so that it has never been forgotten.... Art, when it functions like this, becomes a meeting-place of the invisible, the irreducible, the enduring, guts, and honour.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)