The prints of the inaugural print collection from Kinngait (Cape Dorset) are amongst the most coveted by collectors. The stonecuts and stencils of this 1959 suite were printed in editions of 30 and their appearance on the secondary market is relatively infrequent. Much rarer still are the stone rubbings from this collection, done in the very small edition size of only 10. Moreover, only two stonecut rubbings were ever attempted in Cape Dorset; the printmakers were less happy with the frottage-like results produced by the rubbing technique than they were with the stonecut method. To our eyes, however, the variety of the lines produced in the rubbing technique in Lukta’s Owl endows the work with a delightful flickering sense of gentle animation; there is a real sensation of motion in the image. Note: the rubbing is a “positive” image transfer from the stone block (i.e. identical to the original drawing), not the reverse image achieved through the stonecut process.

References: A photograph of a young girl, Cathy Bennett, holding the stone block with the printed image of the Owl stone rubbing was illustrated in “Artistry of the Eskimos,” Toronto Daily Star, Friday 8 April 1960, p. 19. Image reproduced in Ken Mantel et al., Tuvaq: Inuit Art and the Modern World, (Bristol, UK: Sansom and Company Ltd., 2010), fig. 47, p. 58. Norman Vorano, Inuit Print: Japanese Inspiration, Early Printmaking in the Canadian Arctic, (Ottawa, ON: Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation, 2011), p. 67, cat. 5.