NIVIAQSI (NIVIAKSIAK) (1908-1959) KINNGAIT (CAPE DORSET)
The Archer, 1960 #45
Printmaker: IYOLA KINGWATSIAK (1933-2000) KINNGAIT (CAPE DORSET)
sealskin stencil, 23 x 12.5 in (58.4 x 31.8 cm)
39/50

Provenance
Collection of John and Joyce Price, Seattle, WA.

One of Niviaqsi’s most iconic images, The Archer was created using two overlaid stencils to define the form of the figure. To delineate the trim of the archer’s coat and kamiks, as well as to indicate his right arm readying his arrow, master printmaker Iyola Kingwatsiak first applied a pale, icy blue to create a complex network of paths. On top of this, the bulk of the hunter is described in segments of carefully applied deep blue. The careful registration required makes The Archer considerably more complicated than Niviaqsi’s equally famous Man Hunting At A Seal Hole In The Ice from 1959.

The beauty of The Archer is in the elegant restraint of the image. Set against a blank background and devoid of any contextualizing details, there is a clear sense of an upward drive. Niviaqsi’s drawing relies on the triangle shape — seen in the overall form of the archer and repeated in the shape of the arrow head, the flaps of the man’s parka, which gently lean into one another to form a point, as well as in his wide splayed stance. This sequence of pyramid shapes draws our eye upward, where four ptarmigans circle at the top of the page.

References: Image reproduced in Ernst Roch ed., Arts of the Eskimo: Prints, (Montreal/Toronto: Signum/Oxford, 1974), p. 42-43. For illustrations of Niviaqsi's 1959 prints see Christine Lalonde and Leslie Boyd Ryan, Uuturautiit: Cape Dorset 1959-2009 , (Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 2009), cats. 22-30.