Raised on the land in a traditional Netsilik lifestyle, Nick Sikkuark was orphaned as a young boy, then cared for briefly by an older brother before being taken into the care of Oblate missionaries. Groomed for years for the Catholic priesthood, Sikkuark finally left a seminary in Ottawa and returned north in 1965, pursuing work as a carpenter. He began drawing at a young age and taught himself Western perspective techniques. Sikkuark exhibited a distinct penchant for naturalism and realistic detail in both sculpture and drawing during a career that made him a leading light in the “Kitikmeot School” of Inuit art.

Preening Crane is a superb example of his early larger-scale sculpture, carved before Sikkuark began creating the more bizarre and surrealist works for which he is justly famous. Fashioned almost exclusively from muskox horn, it reinforces our opinion of the artist as arguably the closest rival of Karoo Ashevak as the most brilliantly gifted and imaginative manipulator of organic materials – bone, horn, ivory, antler etc. – in all of Inuit sculpture. The muskox horn cranes carved by various artists mostly from the Western Arctic are often quite lovely, but in our opinion, none comes close to the artistry and elegance of this masterpiece.

References: For a more simplified rendition of a crane by the artist from 1998 see Marion Scott Gallery, Vision and Form, (Vancouver: Marion Scott Gallery, 2003), cat. 13. For more information on the artist and his work see Marion Scott Gallery, The Art of Nick Sikkuark: Sculpture and Drawings, (Vancouver: Marion Scott Gallery, 2003). See the section on the artist in Darlene Coward Wight, Art & Expression of the Netsilik, (Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 2000), pp. 32-43. For important sculptures by Sikkuark in the Sarick Collection at the AGO, see Ingo Hessel, Inuit Art: An Introduction, (Douglas & McIntyre, 1998), figs. 95-96; and Gerald McMaster ed., Inuit Modern: The Samuel and Esther Sarick Collection, (Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 2010), pp. 148-149. For a discussion of Sikkuark's sculptural style see Robert Kardosh's two-part article, "Natural Fantasia: The Wonderful World of Nick Sikkuark”: Part I in Inuit Art Quarterly (Spring 2005), pp. 8-14, and Part II in Inuit Art Quarterly (Summer 2005), pp. 10-16.