Most of the Inuit artworks that are the subject of Dr. Pushaw’s study are not in Greenland, taken and residing in collections in places as diverse as Oslo and Kansas. Dr. Bart Pushaw, of the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga researches, collates, historicizes, and analyzes these artworks in order to advocate for their return home.

Indulgent Images: Colonial Inuit Art and the Atlantic World is the first attempt in forty years to establish a critical corpus of Inuit art produced in Greenland between 1680 and 1900. As Dr. Pushaw’s first academic monograph, the project foregrounds close reading of historical art and expressive culture by Inuit makers to understand how Kalaallit Inuit envisioned futures for themselves and navigated colonialism in their own terms.

Dr. Pushaw is the recipient of the 2025 Project Support Denmark Award. This award from the Lois Roth Foundation will support Dr. Pushaw to collaborate with the Nuuk Art Museum, Inuit scholars, and community stakeholders to co-create knowledge on historical art and material culture, as well as study, consult, and photograph otherwise inaccessible artworks that are critical to his academic monograph.