First Arts company logo
First Arts
Skip to main content
  • Menu
  • Home
  • Available Artworks
  • Auctions & Exhibitions
  • Unsold Works
  • SEEKING CONSIGNMENTS
  • About
  • News & Blog
Menu
  • Artworks

    Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: ISA OOMAYOUALOOK (1915-1976), INUKJUAK (PORT HARRISON), Totemic Composition with Walrus, Bear and Man, c. 1951
    Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: ISA OOMAYOUALOOK (1915-1976), INUKJUAK (PORT HARRISON), Totemic Composition with Walrus, Bear and Man, c. 1951
    Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: ISA OOMAYOUALOOK (1915-1976), INUKJUAK (PORT HARRISON), Totemic Composition with Walrus, Bear and Man, c. 1951
    Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: ISA OOMAYOUALOOK (1915-1976), INUKJUAK (PORT HARRISON), Totemic Composition with Walrus, Bear and Man, c. 1951
    Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: ISA OOMAYOUALOOK (1915-1976), INUKJUAK (PORT HARRISON), Totemic Composition with Walrus, Bear and Man, c. 1951

    ISA OOMAYOUALOOK (1915-1976), INUKJUAK (PORT HARRISON)

    Totemic Composition with Walrus, Bear and Man, c. 1951
    stone, 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 —$1,500

    Further images

    • (View a larger image of thumbnail 1) Thumbnail of additional image
    • (View a larger image of thumbnail 2) Thumbnail of additional image
    • (View a larger image of thumbnail 3) Thumbnail of additional image
    • (View a larger image of thumbnail 4) Thumbnail of additional image
    • (View a larger image of thumbnail 5) Thumbnail of additional image
    • Totemic Composition with Walrus, Bear and Man
    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...
    Read more

    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
    Close full details
    Share
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Pinterest
    • Tumblr
    Previous
    |
    Next
    2 
    of 99

FIRST ARTS PREMIERS INC.  
Nadine Di Monte   |    647-286-5012   |    info@firstarts.ca 

Ingo Hessel  |    613-818-2100   |    ingo@firstarts.ca

The main office of First Arts Premiers Inc. is located on the ancestral and traditional territories of the Mississaugas of the Credit, Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee, and Huron-Wendat, the original owners and custodians of this land.  Today, it is home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples.

 

 

 

Join Our Mailing List

 

JOIN

 

 

Facebook, opens in a new tab.
Instagram, opens in a new tab.
Send an email
Copyright © 2021 First Arts
Site by Artlogic
Close

Join our mailing list

Join

We will process the personal data you have supplied in accordance with our privacy policy (available on request). You can unsubscribe or change your preferences at any time by clicking the link in our emails.