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Artworks
ABRAHAM KINGMIATUQ (1933-1990) TALOYOAK (SPENCE BAY)
Sea Spirit, 1989stone, 14 x 7 x 3.5 in (35.6 x 17.8 x 8.9 cm)
unsigned.LOT 44
ESTIMATE: $4,000 — $6,000Further images
Surprisingly, Abraham Kingmiaqtuq made his first few carvings in 1955, well before commercial art-making became established in the Kitikmeot region in the late 1960s. He carved mostly whale bone until...Surprisingly, Abraham Kingmiaqtuq made his first few carvings in 1955, well before commercial art-making became established in the Kitikmeot region in the late 1960s. He carved mostly whale bone until the early 1980s, then primarily stone until his death in 1990. He was well represented with six sculptures in Darlene Wight’s Art & Expression of the Netsilik exhibition of 2000 (cats. 62-67). Sea Spirit is a graceful yet powerfully expressive transformation sculpture; part polar bear and part walrus, the figure is carefully perched on a rocky base, with piercing eyes and snarling mouth agape. It likely represents a shaman’s two animal spirits; both of these large animals would have been formidable helping spirits, with the bear being perhaps the dominant one in this case.
References: For more information on the artist, and images of works in both stone and whale bone, see Darlene Coward Wight, Art & Expression of the Netsilik, (Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 2000), pp. 80-83.Provenance
Images Art Gallery, Toronto;
Acquired form the above by a Private Collection, Toronto.
Exhibitions
Winnipeg, Winnipeg Art Gallery, The Inuit Imagination, 7 Nov 1993 - 13 March, 1994, cat. no. 12.
Publications
Harold Seidelman & James Turner, The Inuit Imagination: Arctic Myth and Sculpture, (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre Ltd., 1993), cat. 12, p. 35.
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