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Artworks
ISA OOMAYOUALOOK (1915-1976), INUKJUAK (PORT HARRISON)
Totemic Composition with Walrus, Bear and Man, c. 1951stone, inlay, and soap inlay, 4.75 x 1 x 1 in (12.1 x 2.5 x 2.5 cm)
unsigned.
LOT 2
ESTIMATE: $1,000 —$1,500Further images
This delightful miniature pole is stylistically identical to a larger, slightly more complex “totem pole” by Oomayoualook in the collection of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts [1]. Oomayoualook was...This delightful miniature pole is stylistically identical to a larger, slightly more complex “totem pole” by Oomayoualook in the collection of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts [1]. Oomayoualook was probably inspired by the quaint illustration of a totem in James Houston’s notorious 1951 instructional booklet Sanajasak: Eskimo Handicrafts - unless Houston was himself inspired by totem-like carvings that reminded him of Northwest Coast poles; the jury is still out on that one. The pole is beautifully carved considering that the artist must have been working with the most basic of tools; he polished the surfaces he could reach as best he could.
1. See Darlene Coward Wight, Early Masters, (WAG, 2006), p. 58.
Literature: For similar poles by the artist see Darlene Coward Wight, Early Masters: Inuit Sculpture 1949-1955 (Winnipeg Art Gallery,, 2006), pp. 58-59; one is also illustrated in Darlene Coward Wight, Creation and Transformation: Defining Moments in Inuit Art (Winnipeg Art Gallery, 2012), cat. 4. See James Houston, Sanajasak: Eskimo Handicrafts, (Montreal: Canadian Handicrafts Guild / Ottawa: Department of Resources and Development, January 1951), p. 11 for Houston’s quaint drawing of an “Eskimo totem pole.”
Provenance
Purchased from the Canadian Guild of Crafts, Montreal, c. 1951;
Walker's, Inuit Art Auction, 15 November 2014, Lot 106;
Private Collection, Ottawa
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