James Archibald Houston
| James Archibald Houston | |
|---|---|
| Born | June 12, 1921 |
| Died | April 17, 2005 (aged 83) |
| Occupation | Author |
| Genre | Children's Literature |
James Archibald Houston, OC, FRSA (June 12, 1921 – April 17, 2005) was a Canadian artist, designer, children's author and film-maker who played an important role in the recognition of Inuit art and introduced printmaking to the Inuit. The Inuit named him "Saumik," which means "the left-handed one".
Born in St. Catharines, Ontario, he studied art as a child with Arthur Lismer and was educated at the Ontario College of Art (1938–40), Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris (1947–48) and in Japan (1958–59) where he studied printmaking. He fought in World War II with the Toronto Scottish Regiment, receiving the Canadian Volunteer Service Medal. After the war, he went to the Eastern Arctic to paint and lived there for twelve years. He was a northern service officer and civil administrator of western Baffin Island. In 1962, he moved to New York and became associate director of design with Steuben Glass.
Moving effortlessly and with great success between different activities, perhaps his biggest accomplishment was his work in the Eastern Arctic of Canada, developing Inuit art. In 1948, Houston traveled to a small Inuit community in Arctic Quebec, Inukjuak (then Port Harrison), to draw and paint images of the Inuit and the Arctic landscape. He traded his own drawings, done on the spot, for a small carving, by an Inuit hunter named Nayoumealuk, of a seated deer. Houston recognized its aesthetic appeal and returned to the Canadian Handicrafts Guild, in Montreal, with roughly a dozen small carvings, done mostly in steatite. The guild, which had tried as early as the 1920s to foster an Inuit-handicrafts market, was impressed with the carving; they were equally impressed by Houston. The guild secured a federal government grant of $1,100 and sent Houston back north in the summer of 1949 to make bulk purchases in various communities in the Eastern Arctic.
...
Wikipedia