Ron Senungetuk: Alaskan Artist Remembered

Figure 1. Renowned Alaska artist Ron Senungetuk was an Artist in Residence at the East Fork Cabin in 2008. His work is on display at several buildings in Denali National Park.

NPS Photo

If ever you can walk through the main floor of the Denali Visitor Center, take a moment to admire the large circular topographic model of this national park.

Along the perimeter of the model are panels created by Alaska Native artists from around the state, and each section represents the artist's respective culture. One panel was the artistic vision of Ron Senungetuk, an important artist in Alaska's recent history.

Figure 2. Inside the Denali Visitor Center you can view Senungetuk's Tingmeaqpuk along the perimeter of the topographic map.

NPS Photo

The Inupiaq artist was born in Kingigin (also known as the village of Wales) on the Seward Peninsula. He attended a Bureau of Indian Affairs school in Sitka, where he learned wood carving, and then enrolled at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) where he continued to master wood carving and also began working with metal.

Senungetuk was drafted into the Army during the Korean War, and when he returned to school he earned a fine arts degree from RIT and a Fulbright Scholarship to study metalsmithing and sculpture in Oslo.

Figure 3. Senungetuk speaks to a group of artists on the North Slope in 1970.

McCutcheon Collection, Anchorage Museum, B1990.14.5.AkNative.20.7

When Senungetuk returned to Alaska, he continued to work with wood and metal but also began dedicating much of his life to education and providing opportunities to young Alaska Native artists. In 1965 he founded and became director of the Native Art Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF), and, by 1977, he was the head of the art department at UAF.

Senungetuk came to Denali National Park in 2008 as a part of its Artist in Residence program. He stayed at the East Fork Cabin, which inspired his carved silver maple panel that now hangs in Denali's "Shaffer Building" (see Figure 5).

Figure 4. Senungetuk (right) works with Norman Matoomealluk in Wainwright Village, 1970

McCutcheon Collection, Anchorage Museum, B1990.14.5.AkNative.25.14

Senungetuk's other contribution to Denali is the section of the DVC topographic model (see Figure 2).

This piece represents the Western/Beringia region of Alaska, and his Inupiaq culture. He issued the following statement describing this work titled "Tingmeaqpait:"

Many legends in Kingiguun (“High One”), also known as Wales, are connected to the whaling culture of the Bering Strait maritime region. One common legendary image was a giant bird. Tingmeaqpait lived at high mountains.

The places included Kingiguun, Kiqluait of Kawarak (“Saw Toothed Mountains”), and higher mountains beyond. The giant birds were portrayed as carriers of caribou and whales. The images were incorporated into whale hunting equipment for reverential purposes, identity, and for a sense of beauty. “Kishiq” is a Wales term. It means “to serve notice” or to invite. Nearby communities were asked to participate in Wales to attend trade fairs and to celebrate life.

The anthropological term for this event generally is “messenger feast”. The so-called “eagle dance” is known as “Nishaq” in the Bering Strait region. My work at Denali alludes to this once high form of a ceremonial rite. A Bering Strait seal dance mask is centered on the giant bird. A seal coming up for air through its ice hole forms surface rings on the water. The mask serves as a connection between the undersea world, the world as we know it, and cosmology.

Figure 5. "East Fork Cabin" is on display in a facility in Denali National Park

NPS Photo

In 2014, Alaskan artist and fellow UAF professor Kes Woodward (Denali's first Artist in Residence) said that Senungetuk was "not only almost certainly the most widely exhibited Alaskan artist, really the dean of all Alaska artists, but has been a mentor to generations of both Native artists and non-Native artists."

Senungetuk has art work in private collections all over the world but is also on display at the Anchorage Museum, the Museum of the North at UAF, the Native Medical Center in Anchorage, and the Pratt Museum in Homer. He was an original member of the Alaska State Council on the Arts and even designed its logo.

Figure 6. Senungetuk was known for his meticulous carving. Here he is working on Tingmeaqpuk (a giant bird) for the Denali Visitor Center exhibit. The art piece is on the west side of the model and represents the Western/Beringia portion of Alaska.

NPS Photo/Carol Harding

Ron Senungetuk passed away on January 21, 2020, at the age of 87. His life and extraordinary contributions to Alaska's art scene are worth celebrating. Next time you're in the Denali Visitor Center, stop and appreciate the work of one of our state's most accomplished artists.