Holman: Forty Years of Graphic Art was the first comprehensive exhibition dedicated to the creative spirit of Holman artists over the years held at The Winnipeg Art Gallery March 22 to August 19, 2001. This publication is the catalogue of that exhibition, and features the work of twenty artists.

Arts and crafts production in the small community of Holman in the Western Canadian Arctic began in 1961 as the Holman Eskimo Co-operative. The hamlet of Holman is located in Canada’s Northwest Territories north of the Arctic Circle on the West coast of Victoria Island. It is surrounded a series of bluffs – a landscape often represented in the art. The community is called Ulukhaktok by its Inuit residents.

In early 1963, a collection of ten prints was sent to the Canadian Eskimo Arts Council (CEAC) in Ottawa for feedback, and later that year the federal Department of Northern Affairs sent an arts advisor to Holman to help with further arts development. In November 1965, the first annual collection of 30 limited-edition prints was approved for release by the CEAC. The artists and printmakers of Holman soon became known internationally, and have continued to create their distinctive art to the present day.

The exhibition showed the historic development of arts and artists in Holman through a broad range of graphic works, and a video Holman/ Ulukhaktok, filmed in Holman in November 2000.

The Winnipeg Art Gallery is home to an almost complete collection of 879 prints that had been published by the Holman Eskimo Co-operative between 1965 to 2000, making it a primary research centre for Holman art.

Curator: Darlene Coward Wight

Copyright: The Winnipeg Art Gallery/ Le Musée des beaux-arts de Winnipeg, 2001

ISBN: 0-88915-206-3

Softcover, 96 pages