As with Joe Talirunili’s memory and his art, the exact details of the artist’s birth are somewhat hazy. He may have been born as early as 1893, more likely in 1899, or as he sometimes thought, as late as 1906. Talirunili began carving in 1950, probably at the request of James Houston. Some of his earliest carvings are illustrated in Darlene Wight’s Early Masters catalogue (WAG, 2006, pp. 108-111). His stonecut prints began appearing in collections in 1962, but the first ones depicting umiaq adventures are only dated 1964 (published 1965). It seems likely then that 1964 is the year he began his Migration Boat sculptures as well. Talirunili carved several different subjects over the decades; he created many portraits of solitary standing men, women, and owls which are well known and much admired, but it is his Migration Boats, often simply referred to as “Joe Boats” - various depictions of a harrowing marine adventure - that have captured the public’s imagination.

Talirunili died September 11, 1976, just over a month after the death of his cousin and close friend Davidialuk (see Lots 18, 98, 99). Talirunili had pretty much given up on making art as early as 1971. However, “In an unprecedented resurgence of energy in late 1974, Talirunili produced four stonecuts for the Povungnituk 1975 collection and more than thirty outstanding sculptures for an exhibition of his work held in Toronto’s Inuit Gallery in April 1975. This was his first major exhibition. His vigor not yet spent, Joe continued carving into 1976, producing enough work for a second exhibition. [...] Like his cousin, Davidialuk, Joe produced an astonishing amount of work in the year preceding his death. It was as if they were both laboring under a compulsion to concretize everything they knew while there was still time - Davidialuk the story teller and Talirunili, the chronicler” [1].

Talirunili completed at least a dozen Migration Boats in the last two years of his life; several of these are illustrated in Marybelle Myers’s landmark 1977 monograph - a wonderful homage to the artist, by the way - including the present fine example which is shown on page 45. The number of travellers in each boat varies from the low twenties to the low forties depending on Joe’s memory at the time of making, and probably also on the size and shape of the stone he was carving. Most examples have sails; a few do not. The paddles were made from the materials at hand: antler, ivory, or wood. A few boats come with a list of occupants; some are signed.

This Migration Boat is a classic example of Talirunili’s late period style. As Marybelle Myers so aptly puts it, “Talirunili’s natural talent led him beyond mere technical virtuosity to creations of compelling originality” [2]. Joe’s art was little valued by his Puvirnituq peers (with the probable exception of Davidialuk), but there is no denying the obsessive, folk-art intensity with which he approached his late works. The harrowing nature of the umiaq’s twenty-three passengers is beautifully conveyed in this rough and tumble version, carved a bit later than the larger version found in the May 2019 First Arts catalogue, Lot 18, and perhaps a few months after the example dated 1975 in the collection of the Canadian Museum of History (see Hessel, Inuit Art: An Introduction, fig. 63). The gaunt visages of these desperate paddlers and their families are haunting and truly compelling.

We love Myers’s characterization of Joe as a Don Quixote-type figure. A hapless hunter who once managed to shoot himself in the arm, and a hopeless mariner who was always smashing his boats, Talirunili chronicled his life and misadventures with fierce intensity, and seemingly managed through sheer force of will to create one the most impressive and vital bodies of work in the history of Canadian art.

1. Myers, Joe Talirunili: “ grace beyond the reach of art”, 1977, p. 4.

2. Ibid., p. 5.

References: Similar works by the artist in George Swinton, Sculpture of the Inuit, (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1972/92), fig. 359; Maria von Finckenstein ed., Celebrating Inuit Art 1948-1970, (Hull, QC: Canadian Museum of Civilization, 1999), p. 91; Ingo Hessel, Inuit Art: An Introduction, (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre / New York: Harry Abrams / London: British Museum Press, 1998),fig. 63; Gerald McMaster, ed., Inuit Modern: The Samuel and Esther Sarick Collection, (Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 2010), p. 112; Jean Blodgett, Grasp Tight the Old Ways: Selections from the Klamer Family Collection of Inuit Art, (Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 1983), cat. 137.