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Abstract:
The critical success of Annie Pootoogook’s drawings has often been credited with precipitating a major shift within Inuit art towards more hybridized subject matter that led to the critical recognition of artists such as Shuvinai Ashoona, Tim Pitsiulak, Itee Pootoogook, and Jutai Toonoo. Despite being characterized as a stylistic break within Inuit art history, I argue that these drawings display a sense of continuity with older generations of artists in Kinngait. My examination of factors in the contemporary art world indicates that the popularity of Inuit drawing was due to marketing by agents in the southern art world as well as the shift from modernism to the contemporary period. Such shifts altered the demands for authenticity in Inuit art and now privilege hybridized subject matter. I propose that the contemporary art world overlooks the complex ways in which Inuit have responded to modernity and use drawings to aid resiliency.