Barry Roberts creates a vivid image of a strong, independent woman in his 1976 book on Salluit artists: “Until her death in 1966, when almost seventy, the rangy figure of Mary Irqiquq could be seen striding through the settlement, staff in hand, bag over her shoulder, on her way to or from the hunt for small animals – ptarmigan, hares, etc.” (p. 54). Irqiquq was not a prolific artist but she was a brilliant sculptor; she created a handful of masterpieces beginning in about 1953.

Irqiquq’s Mother Nursing a Child confirms our long-held opinion that 1950s Salluit sculpture is one of the most brilliant flowerings of Inuit art. Perhaps the fact that it flourished for such a short time makes the greatest examples that much more poignant and remarkable. The sculpture is monumental yet unpretentious, and full of raw strength yet utterly charming. We feel the woman’s pain as her older child sucks rather too vigorously at his mother’s depleted breast. Like many Salluit masterpieces, Mother Nursing a Child is not “pretty” in the usual sense of the word yet it is extraordinarily beautiful and profoundly moving.

References: For another masterpiece by Irqiquq see Darlene Wight, Creation and Transformation (Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 2012), fig. 14 and Darlene Wight, Twomey Collection (Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery,2003), p. 38. For other examples see Bernadette Driscoll, The Inuit Amautik: I Like My Hood to Be Full, (Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 1980) p. 54 and George Swinton (1972/92) figs. 411 and 416 (note: the latter sculpture was formerly attributed to Maggie Ittuvik Tayarak. It appeared on a Canadian Christmas postage stamp in 1968). See also A. Barry Roberts, The Inuit Artists of Sugluk, P.Q., (Montreal: La Federation des Cooperatives du Nouveau-Quebec, 1976), p. 54.