IOLA ABRAHAM IKKIDULAK (1936-2003) KIMMIRUT (LAKE HARBOUR)
signed and inscribed with artist's disc number, "ᐄᐅᓚ / E7. 923"
LOT 149
ESTIMATE: $2,000 — $3,000
PRICE REALIZED: $2,400.00
Further images
For a period of perhaps no more than three years in the late 1960s a small group of carvers in Kimmirut, led by Nuyaliaq Qimirpik, created a remarkable group of spirit carvings, apparently at the request of a local schoolteacher named Tony Whitbourne who was buying carvings for the government for a time. Sadly, this spiritual flowering ended as swiftly as it began, but we can be grateful for the wonderful works created during that period.
Iola Ikkidluak had a very traditional upbringing and was renowned as a great storyteller. One of his favourite tales was the story of a man who, after eating some walrus meat, found that his head had turned into a walrus head. This charming work, with its beautifully fluid sculptural forms, appears to depict the Walrus Man halfway through his transformation. We find this work more poetic than Iola’s later versions of the subject.
References: For a whale bone Bird-Man by the artist see Jean Blodgett, The Coming and Going of the Shaman, (Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 1979), cat. 39, p. 86. For a similar work by Iola’s fellow Kimmirut artist Nalenik Temela (1939-2003) see Jean Blodgett, Selections from The John and Mary Robertson Collection of Inuit Sculpture, (Kingston: Agnes Etherington Art Centre, 1986), cat. 45.
Provenance
Ex. Collection of John and Mary Robertson;Private Collection, British Columbia.
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