Aqjangajuk (Axangayu) Shaa

A grandson of the carver Kiakshuk and the only child of artists Paunichea and Munamee Davidee, Aqjangajuk began carving at the age of seventeen. He participated in the early drawing projects in Cape Dorset but realized his strengths lay in sculpture and did not draw after 1960. Only one graphic by him, Wounded Caribou, was ever released, in the 1961 Cape Dorset annual print collection. His work was in the famous 1971-73 touring exhibition “Sculpture/Inuit. Sculpture of the Inuit: Masterworks of the Canadian Arctic.” Since 1970, he has had eleven solo exhibitions, as well as appearing in many group shows, and his work is in many major museum collections, including the National Gallery of Canada and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. He was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy in 2003.

Excerpt from Cape Dorset Sculpture, 2005.