Robert Steyer
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Today the latest edition of Cape Dorset prints will be released to an eager public, ranging from private collectors to museums throughout North America, Europe and Japan.
What started out as a way for indigenous people to cope with a depressed economy has grown into a exclusive event in the art world. "Many clients wait in line for hours before the opening in order to ensure they get the prints they covet," says Mark London, owner of the Galerie Elca London in Montreal. Depending on the artist, each edition of original prints can sell out quickly. Each print is usually limited to an edition of 50. A Cape Dorset print can represent an appreciable asset if the buyer is patient: Some purchased for a few hundred dollars or less many years ago can now command five figures at auction. The average price for a print from the first collection was about $30, says London; most prints from this class of 1959 sell between $1,000 and $10,000 today. The most famous print is Enchanted Owl by visionary Inuit artist Kenojuak Ashevak, now 80 years old, who also has several pieces in the 2007 collection. Enchanted Owl cost $75 when it was released to the public in 1960. At a 2001 auction in Toronto, one sold for $58,650, says Leslie Boyd Ryan, director of Dorset Fine Arts, the wholesale marketing division of the Inuit-owned West Baffin Eskimo Cooperative. However, if a collector has the temperament of a daytrader or the soul of a condominium-flipper, this artwork isn't a good fit. "Cape Dorset prints do appreciate, generally speaking, but it's a long-term investment strategy," Ryan says. It can take 10 or 20 years -- or more -- for a print to rack up a big gain in value.
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