Kenojuak Ashevak, (Inuktitut: ᕿᓐᓄᐊᔪᐊᖅ ᐋᓯᕙᒃ, Qinnuajuaq Aasivak), (October 3, 1927 – January 8, 2013) is celebrated as a leading figure of modern Inuit art. Early life and family Kenojuak Ashevak was born in an igloo in an Inuit camp, Ikirasaq, at the southern coast of Baffin Island. Her father, Ushuakjuk, an Inuit hunter and fur trader, and her mother, Silaqqi, named Kenojuak after Silaqqi's deceased father. According to this Inuit naming tradition, the love and respect that had been accorded to her during her lifetime would now pass on to their daughter. Kenojuak also had a brother and a sister. Kenojuak remembered Ushuakjuk as "a kind and benevolent man." Her father, a respected angakkuq (shaman), "had more knowledge than average mortals, and he would help all the ." According to Kenojuak, her father believed he could predict weather, predict good hunting seasons and even turn into a walrus; he also had the ability "to make fish swarm at the surface so it was easier to fish." Her father came into conflict with Christian converts, and some enemies assassinated him in a hunting camp in 1933, when she was only six. After her father's murder, Kenojuak moved with her widowed mother Silaqqi and family to the home of Silaqqi's mother, Koweesa, who taught her traditional crafts, including the repair of sealskins for trade with the Hudson's Bay Company and how to make waterproof clothes sewn with caribou sinew. When she was 19, her mother, Silaqqi, and stepfather, Takpaugni, arranged for her to marry Johnniebo Ashevak (1923–1972), a local Inuit hunter. Kenojuak was reluctant, she said, even playfully throwing pebbles at him when he would approach her. In time, however, she came to love him for his kindness and gentleness, a man who developed artistic talents in his own right and who sometimes collaborated with her on projects; the National Gallery of Canada holds two of Johnniebo's works, Taleelayo with Sea Bird (1965) and Hare Spirits (1960). In 1950 a public health nurse arrived in her Arctic village; Kenojuak, having tested positive in a tuberculosis screening, was sent against her will to Parc Savard hospital in Quebec City, where she stayed for over three years, from early 1952 to the summer of 1955. She had just given birth when she was forcibly transferred; the baby was adopted by a neighbouring family. Several of Kenojuak's children died while she was confined in hospital.