In our opinion Qaqaq Ashoona stands at the pinnacle of Cape Dorset sculpture from the mid 1950s, alongside the great Niviaqsi and Sheokjuk Oqutaq. Son of the beloved graphic artist Pitseolak and brother to the gifted sculptor Kiugak, Qaqaq carved distinctive and impressive works for the next forty years, but it is early sculptures such as this masterpiece that really inspire our admiration. The elegance and sensitivity of this Standing Mother and Child is quite remarkable, especially given that it was carved from an incredibly dense, heavy, and quite thin slab of rock. The figure’s simple standing pose might be static were it not for its beautiful proportions and graceful curves, the lovely and expressive faces of both mother and child, the charming flip of the mother’s left shoulder, and the subtle tilt of the child’s head. We also love the way the woman holds the qulliq, an iconic symbol of warmth and light. We wonder if it’s a gift or a treasured heirloom. Simply gorgeous.

References: For an important and stylistically similar work by the artist dated c. 1955 see Canadian Eskimo Arts Council, Sculpture / Inuit: Masterworks of the Canadian Arctic (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1971), cat. 330. For another interesting and similarly tall sculpture by Qaqaq see Maria von Finckenstein ed., Celebrating Inuit Art 1948-1970 (Hull, QC: Canadian Museum of Civilization, 1999), p. 109. For other 1950s examples see Cynthia Waye Cook, Inuit Sculpture In the Collection of the Art Gallery of York University (North York, ON: Art Gallery of York University, 1988), cat. 2, p. 10, cats. 50-51, p. 63, ad cat. 54, p. 64. For a lovely Standing Woman Holding a Kamik see First Arts, 30 Nov. 2021, Lot 82.