Davidialuk was a true storyteller who has been justly celebrated for his obsession with depicting dramatic scenes from stories and legends in his sculptures, drawings, and prints. Davidialuk enjoyed recounting colourful tales and legends at least as much as he did the great Inuit myths. Folk tales often freely mixed fanciful creatures and narratives with snippets of remembered local history. In his "Foreword" to the commemorative publication Davidialuk 1977, Ian Lindsay referred to Davidialuk as "…one of the last myth-makers." [2]

As was common with many of Davidialuk’s works, this piece bears an inscription describing the subject as a giant who had saved two men, their families, and their provisions. The description also cryptically states “he thinks it is a whale. He carries a whale on his back.” While at first glance it would appear to be a beluga whale on the giant’s back, the heavily etched “whiskers” might in fact be baleen, suggesting perhaps a much larger whale such as a humpback.

1. First Arts extends our gratitude to Talasia Tulugak for her assistance in cataloguing this lot.

2. Marybelle Myers ed., Davidialuk 1977 (La Fédération des Coopératives du Nouveau-Québec, 1977), unpaginated.