Kenojuak Ashevak is perhaps the best-known Inuit artist -- in Canada, and indeed worldwide. She learned to paint while hospitalized from 1952 to 1955 in Quebec City. After returning home, James Houston – the federal government’s administrator for Nunavut – encouraged her to continue carving and painting with her husband. Since then, Kenojuak has painted a mural for the 1970 World’s Fair in Osaka, designed a stained-glass window for the chapel of Appleby College in Oakville, Ontario, and won the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts. She is a Companion of the Order of Canada.
