This may well be the largest, most monumental sculpture Tatanniq ever created. Tatanniq typically carved on a much more modest scale; in their size and even their themes, many of his small and medium-size carvings have a sense of quiet intimacy more akin to the works of female Baker Lake artists such as Miriam Qiyuk, Yvonne Kanayuq, or Nancy Pukingrnak, rather than the larger, more muscular compositions of Barnabus Arnasungaaq, Peter Sevoga and Tuna Iquliq. Mother with Two Children proves that Tatanniq, at least two decades older than most of his male peers, could create monumental sculptures with the best of them when he chose.

Mother with Two Children is a veritable boulder of a work, but even on a scale that rivals the largest compositions of Arnasungaaq, Tatanniq manages to achieve a timeless sense of calm and stillness, rather than the rhythmic movement, power, and energy that characterizes large Baker Lake sculptures. We can easily imagine a similar subject by the artist made to be cradled in one’s hands, so it is quite an achievement in itself that nothing seems “lost in translation.” The inevitable flaws found in a stone of this size led Tatanniq to spend less time on the details of surface finish, but the clarity of the artist’s vision and the crispness of his volumes and lines still shine forth. Mother with Two Children is a glorious sculpture, a truly iconic Baker Lake masterpiece.

We know of no other sculptures of this size by the artist. Works by Tatanniq that begin to approach the scale of this work are Mother and Child from 1970, Woman from 1973, and Mother and Two Children from the early 1970s (see references).

References: Other monumental works by Tatanniq mentioned in our essay are: Mother and Child from 1970, illustrated in Norman Zepp, Pure Vision: The Keewatin Spirit (Regina: Norman Mackenzie Art Gallery, 1986) cat. 69; Woman from 1973, also reproduced in Pure Vision as well as in Jean Blodgett, The Zazelenchuk Collection of Eskimo Art (Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 1978) cat. 43; and Mother and Two Children from the early 1970s, sold at Walker’s Auctions, Ottawa, November 2013, Lot 29.