Crowd of People was exhibited in the 2002 National Gallery of Canada solo exhibition, Marion Tuu’luq. It stood out then and stands out now as an exquisite jewel, a rich, sensuous masterpiece of Inuit textile art. It’s a remarkable composition, consisting of six tightly packed tiers of figures (one hundred forty-seven, to be precise) ranged above a more loosely organized row of humans and spirits. At the time of making, the artist described the scene as a drum dance; for the NGC exhibition she called it a church congregation. Perhaps in Tuu’luq’s mind both explanations could be equally true. Equally, we can see the work as being both ornamental and symbolic, and narrative yet verging on the abstract. Except for the bottom row of figures – which is a delightful jumble of figures as many of Tuu’luq’s textiles are – the arrangement of its shapes and patterns is dense, almost obsessively so, yet richly varied and joyful. Marie Bouchard’s observation that “Tuu’luq’s [style] drew from a fascination with the texturally rich sculptural surfaces, organic patterns, and earth colours found in nature” is very perceptive, and accurate even when the artist chose to illustrate a ‘crowd of people’ [1].

Compared to works by Oonark, Tuu’luq’s style here is decidedly painterly. Once again, we feel that Marie Bouchard has hit the nail on the head, “In constructing her designs, she would engage in a wordless dialogue with her materials, playing with shape and colour, literally using the fabric pieces likes swaths of pigment and covering their surfaces with thick embroidery stitching as visually fine and dense as Georges Seurat’s pointillist brushstrokes” [2].

One of the most brilliant and delightful aspects of this magnificent work by Tuu’luq is a feature that we have often observed in the textiles of Oonark, namely the element of surprise. For despite the seeming repetition of imagery in this great work, what really captivates and entertains us – and keeps us wanting to come back for another look – is the variety of stitchery, the playful changes of colour, and the charming facial expressions that make us feel as if we are looking at one hundred forty-seven different people, not to mention the amusing array of figures below that have captured their attention.

Marion Tuu’luq, one of Canada’s greatest textile artists, was her cousin Jessie Oonark’s only serious rival, but it was a friendly rivalry as the two were also best friends. Tuu’luq was born on the land in the early 1900s and lived a traditional Inuit life for five decades before she and her second husband Luke Anguhadluq finally moved into the community of Baker Lake in 1961. Tuu’luq began experimenting with textiles in 1966, shortly after Oonark had done so. Over the next two decades Tuu’luq created more than one hundred works on cloth, as well as delightful drawings and print images (see Lot 67).

1. Marie Bouchard, “Negotiating a Third Space: The Works on Cloth of Marion Tuu’luq” in, Marion Tuu’luq, (2002), p. 32.

2. Ibid., p. 28.