While dogs appear constantly in camping and hunting scenes, single figures of dogs are relatively few in Inuit art. Perhaps, as working animals, companions, and family members, they are not seen as suitable as suitable “wildlife” subjects. Carved in a deep green stone, this lovely Seated Howling Dog is portrayed with limbs close to the body; compact, but the sense of energy and excitement that dogs everywhere are known and loved for. Seated for the moment, this fellow is ready to run and get to work.

References: For two contemporaneous howling dogs by artists Kananginak Pootoogook and Iyola Kingwatsiak see Canadian Eskimo Arts Council, Sculpture / Inuit: Masterworks of the Canadian Arctic, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1971), cats. 117 and 125. For an excellent introduction to the life and work of the artist see Darlene Coward Wight, Kiugak Ashoona: Stories & Imaginings from Cape Dorset, (Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 2010).