Few works achieve the lyrical force found in Arctic Gulls. The paired silhouettes of birds, stencilled with deliberate economy, direct our gaze toward the brilliance of the colour itself: a dense blue contrasted sharply beside a searing red. Unlike Three Narwhal or Arctic Shore Birds (lots 108 and 109, respectively), where the stencil form is layered or overlapped, here the same form is placed twice side by side, allowing us to admire its contours in their entirety.

This deliberate focus on colour as both structure and accent recalls a remarkably Modernist sensibility. The gulls function less as strictly naturalistic depictions than as vessels for pure chromatic intensity, their paired silhouettes holding highly saturated fields of blue and red with an almost sculptural clarity. The effect is immediately reminiscent of the Hard Edge Abstractionists, who were at this same moment beginning to define themselves in the United States. What makes Niviaqsi’s print so compelling is that this exploration of simplified form and high-key colour was unfolding in the Canadian Arctic in 1959, in a context far removed from the metropolitan centres where Modernist theory was being debated, yet arriving at visual solutions that resonate just as strongly.

James Houston, who was also an artist, clearly recognized Niviaqsi’s novel and bold talent. His simplified drawing style was ideally suited to translation into prints; eight of the forty images in the inaugural 1959 collection were based on Niviaqsi’s drawings.