Peter Pitseolak is famous for being the first Inuit photographer and historian. Pitseolak took his first photo in the 1930s and purchased his own camera in 1942. From then until his death Pitseolak, in collaboration with his wife Aggeok, took over 2,000 photographs documenting a South Baffin way of life that was in rapid transition. In his role as a historian, Pitseolak chronicled scenes of traditional hunting, customs, stories, and myths. Pitseolak was also a talented painter; indeed his 1939 sketchbook produced for Lord Tweedsmuir is a stunning set of works that predate the Cape Dorset graphics initiative by nearly two decades. A prolific writer, Pitseolak published, in collaboration with Dorothy Harley Eber, People from our Side (1975) and Peter Pitseolak's Escape From Death (1977).

Pitseolak was also an accomplished, but not prolific, sculptor whom the great Osuitok Ipeelee considered a teacher and mentor. He is the possible creator of a magnificent Standing Mother and Child featured in our 13 July 2021 auction (Lot 21). Signed by the artist and typical of the style and the type of stone he was known to carve in the late 1950s, we are dating this impressive Bust of a Mother and Child to c. 1957-60. The sensitively carved faces and attention to clothing details suggest that Pitseolak carved this piece as a portrait that deserved the same accuracy as one of his photographs. Because this sculpture is so monumental and well executed, we think it likely that Aggeok and one of their children actually posed for the portrait.