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Agnes Nanogak
Canadian, 1925 - 2001
Agnes Nanogak was a prolific graphic artist and printmaker from Ulukhaktok (Holman), NWT. Born in Baillie Islands in 1925 to Alaskan guide William Natkutsiak and Topsy Ekiona, a Mackenzie Delta Inuit, the family settled in Ulukhaktok in the mid-1930s. Encouraged by her father to pursue her art, Nanogak began drawing the animals the family hunted and depicting the traditional oral stories she was fascinated by. Nanogak married William Goose in 1947.
During the 1960s, Nanogak became among the first generation of artists to create drawings for the printmaking program at the Ulukhaktok Art Centre (formerly the Holman Eskimo Co-operative), where she hoped her prints would help others learn how to do printmaking. Over time, Nanogak came to prefer working at home, where she could shift her style of drawing based on what was being chosen for prints and what the tourists purchased. Nanogak continued her graphic art through her life and encouraged her children and grandchildren in their artistic pursuits as well. Her son Billy Goose produced several sealskin stencils in the 1960s with a distinctive goose chop mark, and her grandson Rex Goose primarily does sculpture in ivory, antler, and whalebone. Nanogak’s brother, known as Alec Aliknak Banksland, Peter Aliknak, or Aliknak, also had a prolific career as a sculptor and printmaker, helping found the Holman printmaking program.
In 1985, Nanogak received an honorary degree from Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, NS for her artistic contributions and was included in every Holman Print Collection between 1966 and the 1990s. Most recently, Nanogak’s works have been exhibited in the ULAG exhibitions, Unikkausivut: Stories from the North, in 2020, and From the Collection, in 2019.
During the 1960s, Nanogak became among the first generation of artists to create drawings for the printmaking program at the Ulukhaktok Art Centre (formerly the Holman Eskimo Co-operative), where she hoped her prints would help others learn how to do printmaking. Over time, Nanogak came to prefer working at home, where she could shift her style of drawing based on what was being chosen for prints and what the tourists purchased. Nanogak continued her graphic art through her life and encouraged her children and grandchildren in their artistic pursuits as well. Her son Billy Goose produced several sealskin stencils in the 1960s with a distinctive goose chop mark, and her grandson Rex Goose primarily does sculpture in ivory, antler, and whalebone. Nanogak’s brother, known as Alec Aliknak Banksland, Peter Aliknak, or Aliknak, also had a prolific career as a sculptor and printmaker, helping found the Holman printmaking program.
In 1985, Nanogak received an honorary degree from Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, NS for her artistic contributions and was included in every Holman Print Collection between 1966 and the 1990s. Most recently, Nanogak’s works have been exhibited in the ULAG exhibitions, Unikkausivut: Stories from the North, in 2020, and From the Collection, in 2019.