While perhaps not the best-known subject in Joe Talirunili’s repertoire, owls certainly seem to have been his favourite. Of the many examples that we have seen over the years, no two are exactly alike. Indeed, the variety and range of Joe’s owls is rather remarkable. Joe frequently revisited the owl to show the myriad possibilities within the same subject. Perhaps he had a keen interest in depicting different owl personalities, different genders, young vs. old, etc. The combinations and permutations were enough to keep the artist busy for years. What is most remarkable is that, despite how different Joe’s owls might look from each other, they still look completely unlike any other Inuit artists’ owls and are immediately recognizable as the work of the master. Quite possibly Talirunili chose to depict Horned Owls rather than Snowy Owls. He would have seen them on his travels to the northern reaches of the treeline at Kuujjuaraapik (Great Whale River).

References: Several similar portraits of horned owls are illustrated in Marybelle Myers, Joe Talirunili: A Grace Beyond the Reach of Art, (Montreal: La Federation des cooperatives du Nouveau-Quebec, 1977), on pp. 4, 18-19, 26-27, 32, 40, and 50, as well as several prints depicting owls. See also First Arts, May 2019, Lot 1; Jean Blodgett, Povungnituk, (Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 1978), cats. 67-68; George Swinton, Sculpture of the Inuit, (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1972/92), fig. 360. For a very early owl (not a horned owl) from 1953, see Darlene Coward Wight, Early Masters: Inuit Sculpture 1949-1955, (Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 2006), p. 108.