Kakulu Saggiaktok

(also known as Sagiatuk, Qaquluk, Kakoolook, Kakulook) 1940–2020, Inuit

Born on February 14, 1940, aboard the Hudson’s Bay Company supply ship Nascopie while her family traveled from Clyde River to Pangnirtung. Her parents and older brother were part of a small Inuit group hunting and trapping across Baffin Island. Kakulu began drawing in the early 1960s through the West Baffin Eskimo Co-op’s graphic arts program. Her mother, Ikayukta, was a noted graphic artist, and her brother, Qavaroak Tunnillie, was a prolific sculptor. She married Saggiaktok, a long-time printmaker who assisted with her stonecut prints. Kakulu lived in Cape Dorset with her four children, continuing to develop her unique style and participating in Kinngait Studios workshops.

“Because I am not very old, I don’t usually draw the old ways, but in my mind I would like to… I was born on the ship, the Nascopie… I don’t remember much, but I recall being taken by canoe from the ship to land by a white man.” – 1978, Cape Dorset Print Catalogue

Exhibitions (selected)

• Cape Dorset Graphics (annual collection), 1966–2017

• Uuturautiit: Cape Dorset Celebrates 50 Years of Printmaking, National Gallery of Canada, 2009–2010

• Animal Power: Images in Contemporary Inuit Art, Marion Scott Gallery, Vancouver, 2013

• Dorset Large: Large Scale Drawings from Kinngait Studios, Feheley Fine Arts, Toronto, 2011

• Women of the North: Art by Inuit Women, Marion Scott Gallery, Vancouver, 1992

• International exhibitions in the Netherlands, Italy, France, and the USA