Sheokjuk was the elder brother of the famous Cape Dorset sculptor Osuitok Ipeelee. He began carving in ivory in the mid-late 1940s in Kimmirut (Lake Harbour), returned to the Cape Dorset area in 1948 and began carving in stone at the request of James Houston in 1952, and moved back to Kimmirut again in the years 1954-1959, working in both stone and ivory.

Young Girl was carved shortly after Sheokjuk’s return to Kimmirut. We are not sure if Sheokjuk had young children at this time, but this sculpture (and other contemporaneous carvings of young boys and girls) certainly look like a father’s loving portraits of his own children. Although the girl is in a standing position, the way in which her arms are held out suggest that perhaps she is trying to keep her balance - in which case she may still be a toddler. So charming! 

References: For a slightly earlier depiction of a running boy see First Arts Auction, July 2020, Lot 16. For similar portraits of children from the same period see Darlene Coward Wight, Early Masters: Inuit Sculpture 1949-1955, (Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 2006), p. 157, 160-161. For a charming contemporaneous Boy with Dog of similar style see Cynthia Waye Cook, Inuit Sculpture in the Collection of the Art Gallery of York University, (North York: AGYU, 1988) cat. 8.