Hessel was born in Ottawa, Ontario, in 1955. He received a BA in Art History from Carleton University in 1977. In 1983 Hessel began working in the field of Inuit art at the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs, Ottawa. As Special Projects Officer and Coordinator at the Canadian Inuit Art Information Centre from 1984 until 1998, he travelled throughout the north to work with Inuit artists and artist cooperatives. During this period he wrote Canadian Inuit Sculpture and curated Arviat Stone Sculpture for the McMichael Canadian Art Collection and Stories in Stone in Seoul, South Korea. In 1998 his book, Inuit Art: An Introduction was published by the British Museum, London. In 2006, Hessel was appointed the Albrecht Adjunct Curator of Inuit Art at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona. There he curated the exhibition Arctic Spirit: Inuit Art from the Albrecht Collection at the Heard Museum which travelled to the Anchorage Museum, the Mashantucket Pequot Museum, and the Louisiana Art and Science Museum. In 2008 Hessel was appointed Curator of the Museum of Inuit Art in Toronto, where he organized the exhibition New Directions in Cape Dorset Drawing as well as retrospective expositions on artists James Archibald Houston and Kananginak Pootoogook. During the same period, he was guest curator for the exhibition Sanattiaqsimajut: Inuit Art from the Carleton University Art Gallery Collection , and at the Art Gallery of Ontario where he co-curated Inuit Modern: Inuit Art from the Samuel and Esther Sarick Collection with Gerald McMaster. In 2013, he was a symposium speaker and contributor to the Inuit Art exhibition at the Winnipeg Art Gallery. Cited as an authority in his field, Hessel authored the chapter on Inuit Art in The Visual Arts in Canada: The Twentieth Century in 2010. He has also been an Art History lecturer at the University of Ottawa and at Carlton University. In 2011 he was appointed Head, Inuit Art Department, at Walker's Auctions in Ottawa. Hessel is also known as a sculptor and painter, and has exhibited in Canada in Toronto and Ottawa, and in Japan in Kyoto and Nagoya. Frequently visiting the Arctic during his career, his role in introducing new medias to northern communities was acknowledged at The Festive North exhibition at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection. He is a director of the board of directors of the Nunavut-based Inuit Art Quarterlysince 2012.
Select publications
Contributor Creation and Transformation: Defining Moments in Inuit Art. Ed. Darlene Wight. Winnipeg Art Gallery: 2012. Print.
Author "A Culture in Transition: Inuit Art in the Twentieth Century" in The Visual Arts in Canada: The Twentieth Century. Ed. Anne Whitelaw, Brian Foss and Sandra Paikowsky. Oxford University Press, 2010. Print.
Contributor/curator Sanattiaqsimajut: Inuit Art from the Carleton University Art Gallery Collection Ottawa: Carleton University Art Gallery, 2009. Print. 2010 Ontario Association of Art Galleries: Special recognition art publication of the year, and 2009 American Association of Museum Publications Design Competition: First place exhibition catalogue design.
Contributor/co-curator Inuit Modern: Art from the Samuel and Esther Sarick Collection. Ed. Gerald McMaster. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre / Ontario Art Gallery, 2009. Print. . 2011 Melva J. Dwyer Award.
Author/curator Arctic Spirit, Creation and Transformation. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 2006. Print.
