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Dorset Fine Arts

Since its emergence in the 1950s as a creative hub and cultural incubator, Cape Dorset, Nunavut in Canada’s Arctic Circle, has been a source of world class drawings, prints and sculpture. Under the stewardship of the West Baffin Eskimo Cooperative and its marketing division Dorset Fine Arts, Canadian Inuit art has found a place amongst the finest collections, exhibitions and publications worldwide. The unique contribution of Cape Dorset artists has enriched the general discourse around contemporary art and has helped to build a distinctive creative profile for Canada. In order to preserve the vitality of Inuit art, the milieu requires enhanced resources and renewed stimulus – maintenance of the Cape Dorset legacy requires continued investment in both the creation and promotion of Inuit art.

Throughout its history of activity, West Baffin Eskimo Cooperative has enjoyed financial success and remained sustainable almost entirely via self-generated revenues. However, some sixty years later, the business world has significantly changed with new models for success widely adopted in an increasingly competitive environment. Particularly within a commercial visual arts context, a rapidly growing international appetite for cultural product is an exciting opportunity on the one hand, and a situation of heightened challenge on the other. The Legacy Project is a targeted initiative intended to respond to this shifting territory – its design is both immediately vital in triggering an Inuit art renaissance while at the same time seeding future momentum.


McMichael Canadian Art Collection

The McMichael stands alone as the only public fine art gallery in the nation that focuses on Canadian art and the Indigenous art of our country, both historical and contemporary. The permanent collection consists of over 6,400 artworks by Tom Thomson, the Group of Seven, their contemporaries, and First Nations, Métis, Inuit and contemporary artists who have contributed to the development of Canadian art. The McMichael is also the gallery of record for works on paper from the Inuit community of Cape Dorset, as we are the custodians for the Cape Dorset archive, totalling more than 100,000 artworks.