Thomassie Kudluk

Thomassie Kudluk is thought to have been born in 1910 somewhere on the Ungava Peninsula in what is now the northern part of Quebec. Little has been written about Kudluk’s life before the period of the migration from the land to the coastal settlements. At some point in the 1960s, he became a permanent resident of Kangirsuk, one of several small communities that developed around trading posts in the region. He probably began making sculptures for sale to the local coop in the early or mid 1970s. Despite, or because of, the quirky nature of his work, he became one of the settlement’s best-known artists. Kudluk was an active member of his community. According to the art historian Marybelle Mitchell, he testified at the James Bay hearings in the 1970s, which eventually resulted in one of the largest Indigenous land claims settlements in Canadian history.