Like Trumpeter Swans from 1973 and Crowd of People from 1974 (offered at First Arts sales in December 2022 and June 2022 respectively), The Prayer Meeting is another masterpiece exhibited in the landmark travelling exhibition Marion Tuu’luq which opened at the National Gallery of Canada in 2002. As the very last work on cloth created by the artist, it represents a poignant but spectacular culmination of Tuu’luq’s artistic career [1]. Marie Bouchard discusses the importance of the work in the NGC catalogue:

“The artist’s work of bridging cultures seems to reach its peak in The Prayer Meeting (cat. 36), her final work on cloth. At the core is a large rounded face with fish radiating from four sides. This cross-like image can be read as a Christian symbol or as a symbol of the traditional symbiotic relationship between human and nature. The top half of the work features people assembled in prayer, some with their arms raised, signalling their commitment to Jesus, as is practised by Tuu’luq and others in the Christian Fellowship Church at Baker Lake. In the lower half of the picture, Inuit, animals, and birds mix freely with figures of fish-women, fish-men and bird people, the animistic forms of their traditional universe. Produced when Tuu’luq was seventy-nine years old, this work may have been conceived after a bit of covert soul-searching into her own beliefs about the central importance of religion, in both forms, and the relationship between them in her life. It also speaks to Inuit’s vision for Nunavut as a region of Canada where credence is paid once again to their traditional beliefs and values” [2].

Tuu’luq had been baptized an Anglican in 1939. When the Reverend Armand Tagoona (who had been an Anglican minister) opened his Christian Fellowship Church in the early 1970s with the avowed aim of incorporating Inuit values and beliefs, she began attending both churches. It is fascinating to compare this final masterpiece to the great Crowd of People from 1974. The earlier work probably depicts an Anglican service, with only the very bottom tier showing traditional beliefs, while The Prayer Meeting illustrates a somewhat more casual and boisterous Fellowship gathering sharing space with a multitude of animals and hybrid animal-humans. Bouchard describes the imagery in the upper half as Christian and the lower half as animistic, but we can’t help noticing that two fish-people have “infiltrated” the upper half! This little subversive gesture is just one example of the little surprises and quirks that makes this work on cloth so delightful. We also love the colour changeups in both appliqué and embroidery; the two baby fish-people that appear to be suckling; and the walrus that has joined the troupe of belugas. The Prayer Meeting is indeed a joyful and fitting exclamation mark to Tuu’luq’s long list of artistic achievements!

1. Tuu’luq developed a skin allergy to wool which forced her to stop making works on cloth in 1989. She suffered a debilitating stroke the next year that prevented her from making any art at all.