Osuitok Ipeelee

Osuitok Ipeelee was born on an island off the coast of southwestern Baffin Island and lived as a traditional hunter and camp leader before meeting artist James Houston in 1951. Houston recognized Ipeelee's astonishing carved ivory miniatures, collaborating with him to found the legendary Cape Dorset printmaking and sculpting studios.

Ipeelee was a sculptor of virtuoso technical mastery, celebrated for carving delicate, gravity-defying animal sculptures out of hard green serpentine stone, with leaping caribou balanced upon three slender hoof-points. Commissioned to carve Queen Elizabeth II's coronation gift in 1953, he was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 1973 as a patriarch of Arctic art.