Lukta was the son of the famous Cape Dorset artist Kiakshuk (1886-1966). Like his father, Lukta was a gifted sculptor and graphic artist. He designed almost twenty of his own print images, but more importantly he was an incredibly gifted printmaker who worked on almost three hundred Cape Dorset graphics by various artists between the late 1950s and the 1990s. His constant employment at the print shop meant that he was less reliant on creating sculptures as his main source of income. However, at the height of his powers Lukta rivaled the quality of his contemporaries Osuitok Ipeelee and Sheokjuk Oqutaq, with whom he shared a love of avian subject matter. This magnificent and imposing Owl with Lemming is expertly carved from Markham Bay stone, a material that proved to be problematic for most other artists. What’s more, Lukta has masterfully etched the stone, bestowing his subject with truly spectacular plumage. Remarkable.

References: For a small carving of an owl by the artist from 1960 see George Swinton, Sculpture of the Inuit (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1972/92), fig. 443, p. 183; and Canadian Eskimo Arts Council, Sculpture / Inuit: Masterworks of the Canadian Arctic (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1971), cat. 198. For a slightly early owl by Lukta see Feheley Fine Arts, Cross-Currents: Cape Dorset in the 1960s (Toronto: Feheley Fine Arts, 2001), cat. 15. For a somewhat later Watchful Owl see First Arts, 13 July 2021, Lot 114.