OSUITOK IPEELEE, R.C.A. (1923-2005) KINNGAIT (CAPE DORSET)

Osuitok was born in 1923 at Neeouleeutalik camp on southern Baffin Island and lived a traditional hunting life for three decades. He began making and selling ivory carvings already in the 1940s and started to carve stone in the early 1950s at the request of James Houston. Osuitok is widely considered to be Cape Dorset’s preeminent and most influential sculptor.

Osuitok began carving figures of women already in the 1950s, and the artist’s portraits of young women at work vie with those of caribou and birds as his favourite subjects. In Jean Blodgett’s article on Osuitok she notes: “Representations of men… are far outnumbered by those of women. His representations of the female range from portrait busts with delicate facial features, long eyelashes, pert noses, and elaborate braids, to the buxom figures of his fisherwomen. He pays tribute to the Inuit woman’s ability to fish, sew and care for children, and he frankly admires their physical form.” [1]

This impressive and exceptionally lovely Mother and Child, Scraping a Skin reminds us of the slightly smaller but equally fine Kneeling Woman Scraping a Skin offered in the First Arts July 2020 sale (Lot 80). The composition here is rather more complex, however; the mother carries a toddler in her amautiq, and the sculpture draws more attention to the woman’s work, as she scrapes a sealskin draped over a large stone. But what we are really drawn to are the gorgeous faces of the subjects. It is obvious that the woman’s thoughts are elsewhere; in fact, both she and her child wear contemplative, even serious expressions. Certainly, the woman seems to have paused in her work. Brilliantly, Osuitok has created a work of art that delivers not only a wonderful sense of timelessness but also two fine portraits of pensiveness and intelligence in his subjects. Haunting and remarkable.

1. Jean Blodgett, “Osuitok Ipeelee” in Alma Houston, ed., Inuit Art: An Anthology (Watson & Dwyer, 1988:42-55), pp. 45-46. A lovely standing Fisherwoman from 1963 is illustrated in this article.

References: For other lovely portrayals of women by Osuitok see First Arts, 1 December 2020, Lot 49; First Arts 12 July 2020, Lot 80; First Arts, May 2019, Lot 28. See also Toronto-Dominion Bank, The Eskimo Art Collection of the Toronto-Dominion Bank (Toronto: 1972), cat. 73, also illus. in Jean Blodgett, “Osuitok Ipeelee” in Alma Houston, ed., Inuit Art: An Anthology (Watson & Dwyer, 1988), p. 45-46. See also Walker’s Auctions, May 2012, Lot 17; Nov. 2012, Lot 60; May 2013, Lot 22; May 2016, Lot 48; and Nov. 2017, Lot 143. For a slightly later example of the same theme see Waddington’s Auctions, Nov. 2011, Lot 224.