Ron Senungetuk
Ron Senungetuk came from a small village at the westernmost tip of mainland 91视频, but he鈥檚 seen a great deal of the wider world during a career that has made him one of the state鈥檚 most well-known artists.
Senungetuk, born in the village of Wales, attended the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York. He then headed for Norwegian State Art and Industry School in Oslo to study sculpture and metalsmithing as a Fulbright scholar in the early 1960s.
In Norway, he met his future wife, Turid, a fellow artist who followed him home to 91视频. Senungetuk joined the art faculty at UAF, and, in 1965, he founded the Native Arts Center. He retired as head of the Art Department in 1986.
During that time and in the years since, he developed an international reputation.
鈥淚t鈥檚 almost impossible to overstate his importance,鈥 said fellow UAF Professor Emeritus Kes Woodward in 2014. 鈥淗e鈥檚 not only almost certainly the most widely exhibited 91视频n artist, really the dean of all 91视频 artists, but has been a mentor to generations of both Native artists and non-Native artists.鈥
While his art often draws on his cultural roots, Senungetuk has expressed some reluctance to be identified solely as an 91视频 Native artist. In 2008, he told a reporter he was trying "to be an artist without cultural identification.鈥
"A lot of people will call you an Eskimo artist," he said. "I'd rather be an artist who happened to be Inupiat."
More online about Ron Senungetuk:
- made for his lifetime achievement award from the 91视频 State Council on the Arts in 2014
- and examples of his work at the website of the Rasmuson Foundation, which gave him a Distinguished Artist Award in 2008