TUNA IQULIQ (1934-2015) QAMANI'TUAQ (BAKER LAKE)
signed, "ᐃᑯ".
LOT 131
ESTIMATE: $2,000 — $3,000
PRICE REALIZED: $4,080.00
Further images
While Tuna’s early bird carvings (much admired by George Swinton and published in his books) are notable for their purity of form, his later depictions of birds are distinguished for their angular quirkiness. Tuna’s late career owls, on the other hand, are different yet again; rotund and amusing, they are perhaps closer in style and feeling to the sculptures of the Cape Dorset artist Latcholassie Akesuk than they are to other birds by Tuna or his Baker Lake colleagues. Tuna’s owls are truly charming, and this example is particularly so.
References: For early bird sculptures by Tuna, see George Swinton, Eskimo Sculpture, (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, Ltd., 1965), pp. 85, 161, 165; and George Swinton, Sculpture of the Inuit, (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1972), figs. 23, 671-672. For an example similar to this Owl see Walker’s Auctions, Nov. 2017, Lot 298.
Provenance
Spirit Wrestler Gallery, Vancouver;Acquired from the above by the present Private Collection, California.
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