Part of the inland Ihalmiut (Caribou Inuit) group living at Ennadai Lake, Mary Ayaq is the daughter of the camp leader Andy Aulatjut and the renowned sculptor Elizabeth Nutaraaluk. (See previous lot for a brief discussion of the Ihalmiut.) Ayaq began carving in the mid 1960s, working steadily as an artist alongside her husband Luke Anowtalik and sharing a quite similar style at times. Ayaq’s carvings have also been compared to Lucy Tasseor’s multiple-face works, but almost from the beginning Ayaq showed a preference for incorporating figures into her compositions as well.

Family is one of Ayaq’s largest and most impressive works. Although considerably larger, the sculpture is remarkably similar in its overall composition to one of the artist’s earliest and most famous masterpieces, Composition of Figures and Dog from 1969 (see Swinton 1972:141). Family has always been supremely important to Ayaq, and as with so many of her works Family is a celebration of family life. The climbing figures no doubt depict boisterous children (or grandchildren) clambering to be with her; we suspect that the large face on one side of the composition is an image of Ayaq’s mother Nutaraaluk, with whom she was very close.

Literature: For major works by the artist see George Swinton, Sculpture of the Inuit (Toronto: M&S, 1972/92), fig. 141, 145, 601; Ingo Hessel, Arctic Spirit: Inuit Art from the Albrecht Collection at the Heard Museum (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre/Phoenix: Heard Museum, 2006), pp. 158-159; Marion Scott Gallery, Vision and Form: The Norman Zepp – Judith Varga Collection of Inuit Art (Vancouver, 2003), pp. 106-107; Inuit Gallery of Vancouver, Arviat: Artists of the Past Present and Future (1997), cats. 7, 37. Walker’s Auctions, Ottawa, May 2015, Lot 178. See Bernadette Driscoll, Eskimo Point/Arviat (Winnipeg Art Gallery, 1982), pp. 46, 47 and the 1969 photo of Ayaq with one of her sculptures on p. 17.