Michael Massie’s internationally renowned works incorporate metal, stone, antler, and wood in ways unprecedented in Inuit art. This piece demonstrates the artist’s subtle skill in utilizing each material to the best of its potential to create a piece resulting in perfect harmony. Massie is especially famous for his teapots and other metal artworks (see Lot 73), but stone sculptures have become an important part of his impressive oeuvre for more than ten years.

In Recalling his Journey, we see a Janus-faced shaman who has one hand emerging as a caribou head and the other transforming into a walrus. Apparently, this shaman is venturing into the spirit world with the aid of not one but two helping spirits. One of his faces is decidedly grotesque, with mismatched features (reminiscent of Karoo Ashevak), while the other is more stylized, and itself divided into two opposing parts. A beautiful, crescent-shaped piece of brass illuminates half of this face, alluding perhaps to a melding of Inuit culture and modern art. The split face is reminiscent of several works, in particular one titled a couple of couples, in the 2012 Spirit Wrestler Gallery Michael Massie catalogue 50 @ 50 [1]. There, Massie explains that after looking through his old art history books, he was struck by several artworks, including Pablo Picasso’s portrait, Seated Woman of 1927. It reminds us of another work, of course, namely Pitaloosie Saila’s Woman and Snow Bird of 1970 (see Lot 64). Brilliant.

1. Spirit Wrestler Gallery, 50 @ 50 Celebration of Metal and Stone: Michael Massie, 2012, cat. 24.