Johnny Inukpuk was a dominant force in Inukjuak sculpture, and his works inspired and influenced an entire generation of artists. His fabulous works from the 1950s and 1960s show his tremendous skill as a sculptor and his keen sense of observation (see Lot 136). This marvelous sculpture, likely from the mid 1970s, reveals an unexpected experimental side to Inukpuk’s imagination. With this Composition the artist eschews his preferred subjects of Inuit hunters or variations on the mother and child theme, for which he is best known, in favour of an imaginary tableau of Inuit camp life. In this visually complex work, Inukpuk combines bas relief and a surprising amount of negative space to document traditional life on land and at sea. We love how the artist depicted each activity on its own stratum layered atop the igloo. This is the most atypical Johnny Inukpuk sculpture we have ever seen; it makes us wish he had continued in a more experimental vein in his later years.

References: So far as we know, the composition of this sculpture is unique in Johnny Inukpuk’s oeuvre. Interestingly, an artist who did favour a similar compositional device was the famous Puvirnituq sculptor Davidialuk Alasua Amittu. We are thinking specifically of his “Northern Lights” scenes; see for example George Swinton, Sculpture of the Inuit, (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1972/92), fig. 367, p. 171.