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Artworks
MARION TUU'LUQ, R.C.A. (1910-2002) QAMANI'TUAQ (BAKER LAKE)
Untitled Work on Cloth, c. 1976duffle, stroud, and cotton thread, 29.5 x 29.25 in (74.9 x 74.3 cm)
signed, "ᑐᓗ".LOT 27
ESTIMATE: $18,000 — $28,000Further images
Marion Tuu’luq was born in the early 1900s and lived a traditional Inuit life for five decades before she and her second husband Luke Anguhadluq moved into the community of...Marion Tuu’luq was born in the early 1900s and lived a traditional Inuit life for five decades before she and her second husband Luke Anguhadluq moved into the community of Baker Lake in 1961. Tuu’luq began working with textiles in 1966, shortly after her cousin and best friend Oonark had done so, and she became one of Canada’s foremost textile artists. In the 1970s and 1980s Tuu’luq created more than one hundred works on cloth, as well as delightful drawings and print images. She and Anguhadluq were given a two-person show at the Winnipeg Art Gallery in 1976 (and a commercial show at the Upstairs Gallery in Winnipeg), [1] followed by a solo show for her at the Upstairs Gallery in 1980. Tuu’luq was honoured with a solo exhibition and catalogue at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa in 2002. We at First Arts are honoured to have presented three masterpieces included in that National Gallery show: Crowd of People from 1974; Trumpeter Swans from 1973; and The Prayer Meeting from 1989. [2]
As Marie Bouchard, co-curator and primary author of the NGC show/catalogue, writes: “Tuu’luq’s images are decorative, richly coloured, and ornamental rather than imitative. Her compositions are based on repetitions of format, motif, and colour that are as rhythmic as the seasons.” [3] This Untitled Work on Cloth from c. 1976 is no exception and in fact is an early exemplar of some of Tuu’luq’s most important imagery and recurring decorative motifs. The smiling central face with its radiating fish probably represents the sun. Among other well-known examples by the artist, Untitled (an exactly contemporaneous work from c. 1976) is remarkably close in imagery; The Prayer Meeting (Tuu’luq’s very last work on cloth, from 1989) also contains strikingly similar sun/fish imagery. [4] In our example, the round shape of the central face but also the myriad circle motifs surrounding the fish reference not only the sun (or moon), the drum, igloos, and tents – all important elements of Inuit cosmology and community life. The many fish form the rays of the sun but on their own they also symbolize plenty. [5] Altogether, this work on cloth by Tuu’luq is a marvelous and joyous celebration of life-giving abundance.
1. It’s quite possible that the present work was exhibited at the 1976 Upstairs Gallery exhibition.
2. See First Arts auction catalogues of 14 June 2022, Lot 36; 5 December 2022, Lot 24; and 4 December 2023, Lot 21 respectively.
3. Marie Bouchard, “Negotiating a Third Space: The Works on Cloth of Marion Tuu’luq” in National Gallery of Canada, Marion Tuu’luq, (Ottawa: NGC, 2002:17-45), p. 34.
4. For several works with similar imagery see cats. 12, 15 (Untitled), 33 and 36 (The Prayer Meeting) in the National Gallery catalogue.
5. In her reminiscences in Hattie Mannik ed., Inuit Nunamiut: Inland Inuit, (Baker Lake: 1998:44-57), Tuu’luq discusses fish and fishing at some length. At one point she remarks, “I grew up with only fish in Utkuhiksalik” (p. 45).
References: For more information and other masterpieces by the artist see Jean Blodgett, Tuu'luq / Anguhadluq: An Exhibition of Works by Marion Tuu'luq and Luke Anguhadluq of Baker Lake, (Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 1976), cat. 33 (as Birds and Men); Marie Bouchard and Marie Routledge, Marion Tuu’luq, (Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 2002); Katharine W. Fernstrom and Anita E. Jones, Northern Lights: Inuit Textile Art from the Canadian Arctic, (Baltimore: Baltimore Museum of Art, 1994).Provenance
Marion Scott Gallery, Vancouver;
Collection of John & Joyce Price, Seattle, WA.