Toonoo Tunnillie

Toonoo was the youngest of five children, many of whom passed away at a young age.[2] Little is known about his teenage years, however by the late 1950s he was earning a living as a well-respected carver primarily selling to fur traders in the Cape Dorset area.[2] He became one of the earliest Inuit artists to achieve prominence for his sculpture outside of the Canadian North.[2]

Tunnillie was a major influence on his daughter Oviloo, inspiring her own interest in carving.[2] Following the birth of his children, Toonoo supported his family through carving primarily serpentinite stone.[2] In 1959, he was hospitalized in Southern Canada for nearly a year, for unknown reasons.[2] In 1966, Toonoo sold his daughter's work through a Hudson's Bay Company trading post several kilometer's away from the family's home, marking the start of her formal artistic career.[2]

Tunnillie's wife Sheojuke was also an artist, known for printmaking.[1][3]

During a hunting trip in 1969 with his brother-in-law Mikkigak Kingwatsiak, Toonoo perished in what was believed to be a hunting accident, but later revealed to be murder.[2][1]

• Coronation Exhibition, Gimpel Fils London (1953)
• Canadian Eskimo Art, organized by the Department of Northern Affairs of National Resources (1954)

• Winnipeg Art Gallery