Iyola Kingwatsiak’s decision to restrict the bird to just one colour, employing negative space to describe the body and eyes of the bird, make it so that we are beholden to its gaze, which pierces us from the anonymous space of the white, unadorned sheet. The intense sweep of the simplified wings of this Bird in Blue unfurl to span nearly the entire sheet.

Sheouak passed away in 1961 with only ten of her images selected for inclusion in the 1960 and 1961 print collections. As such, prints by the artist appear infrequently on the market but, in particular, Bird in Blue ranks amongst the rarest of the prints produced by the artist in her too-short career. The last public sale for this particular wokr was nearly 30 years ago, in the Fall of 1993.

References: For several original drawings by Sheouak see Jean Blodgett and Susan Gustavison, Strange Scenes: Early Cape Dorset Drawings, (Kleinburg: McMichael Canadian Art Collection, 1993), pp. 106-111. There is limited information on Sheouak. For a brief overview of the artist, see : Jean Blodgett, Kenojuak, (Toronto: Firefly Books, 1985), p. 43. Also James Houston, Eskimo Prints, (Toronto: Longman, 1971) p. 52-4