Perhaps the earliest documented portrayal of a muskox by Osuitok is a carved head from 1955 in the Guild collection in Montreal. Interestingly, two of the only six prints authored by Osuitok (in the late 1950s) depicted muskoxen. Since that time the animal has been only an occasional one for the artist. Conceptually, thematically, and stylistically, the closest published work we have seen in Osuitok’s oeuvre to ours is a contemporaneous Swimming Musk Ox with Young in the Marion Scott Gallery Inspiration catalogue of 1996 (see references).

If Osuitok’s magnificent Walking Caribou (Lot 27) can be considered an idealized, stylized depiction rather than a naturalistic one, then his Muskox is an even more radical departure from verisimilitude. In terms of its degree of abstraction it compares with the artist’s Female Owl Spirit from 1982 (First Arts, Dec. 2020, Lot 81) or any number of other bird or bird spirit portrayals by Osuitok. Perhaps Muskoxness might be a more apt title, since the sculpture strives to capture the essence of the animal rather than a likeness of it. Osuitok has taken enormous liberties: the animal’s massive body has been truncated to almost bust-size proportions when viewed in profile (but from the front, we see a full-size animal charging towards us); the horns hug the face rather than jutting outwards; the face and ears look almost hare-like; the hair appears almost leonine. Yet it works beautifully, powerfully as a sculpture. It’sb old and brilliant.

References: Perhaps the earliest documented portrayal of a muskox by Osuitok is a carved head of the animal from 1955 in the Guild collection in Montreal; see Canadian Guild of Crafts Quebec, The Permanent Collection (Montreal: CGCQ, 1980), fig. 114. Conceptually, thematically and stylistically, the closest work we have seen in Osuitok’s oeuvre is the contemporaneous Swimming Musk Ox with Young (from c. 1975); see Marion Scott Gallery, Inspiration: Four Decades of Sculpture by Canadian Inuit (Vancouver: Marion Scott Gallery, 1996) cat. 24.