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Artworks
PAUTA SAILA, R.C.A. (1916-2009) KINNGAIT (CAPE DORSET)
Striding Polar Bear, c. 1962stone, 6.75 x 15.75 x 3 in (17.1 x 40 x 7.6 cm)
unsigned.LOT 51
ESTIMATE: $6,000 — $9,000
PRICE REALIZED: $7,930.00Further images
This marvelous sculpture captures the animal mid-stride or possibly even at a running gait. The work expresses a degree of simplified form together with an undeniable sense of power and...This marvelous sculpture captures the animal mid-stride or possibly even at a running gait. The work expresses a degree of simplified form together with an undeniable sense of power and “bearness” that we associate with Pauta Saila’s style. The lovely stone points to a period in Cape Dorset art in the late 1950s or early 1960s; in the context of Pauta’s stylistic development, we propose a date of c. 1962 – in other words, quite early in his long and distinguished career. Striding Polar Bear is long and lean and moves in a determined manner that reminds us of that other great carver of bears, Henry Evaluardjuk. And interestingly, unlike most sculptures by Pauta this bear invites us to caress its sleek, powerful back.
References: For a very similar Bear by Pauta see The Eskimo Art Collection of the Toronto-Dominion Bank, (Toronto: T-D Bank, 1967), cat. 11. The TD work is also illustrated in Toronto-Dominion Bank, The Eskimo Art Collection of the Toronto-Dominion Bank, (Toronto: T-D Bank, 1972), cat. 36. For an important and similarly posed Roaring Bear, from 1968 by the artist see First Arts, 14 June 2022, Lot 82. See also George Swinton, Sculpture of the Inuit, (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1972/92), fig. 158 (TD BANK), also illustrated in Bernadette Driscoll, Uumajut: Animal Imagery in Inuit Art, (Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 1985), cat. 1, and in Christine Lalonde and Natalie Ribkoff, ItuKiagâtta! Inuit Sculpture from the Collection of the TD Bank Financial Group, (Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 2005), pl. 11, cat. 38. See another similar example in Gerald McMaster, ed., Inuit Modern: The Samuel and Esther Sarick Collection, (Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 2010), p. 116; for another fine example see Susan Gustavison, Northern Rock: Contemporary Inuit Stone Sculpture, (Kleinburg: McMichael Canadian Art Collection, 1999), cat. 8. For important Pauta “dancing bears” see Ingo Hessel, Inuit Art: An Introduction, (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre / New York: Harry Abrams / London: British Museum Press, 1998), front cover and fig. 102; and First Arts, July 2020, Lot 46.
Provenance
Collection of John and Joyce Price, Seattle, WA.
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