This remarkable Pictorial Panel features two scenes: one depicts hunters returning to a summer camp, and the other a walrus hunt. The figures are delineated with extraordinary precision and lifelike movement in a style that suggests the hand of the Cape Dorset artist Niviaqsi (also known as Niviaksiak). Niviaqsi was a talented sculptor but is best known for his remarkable drawings and prints. The star of the 1959 Cape Dorset print collection, Niviaqsi sadly died in mysterious circumstances that very year. The style of his silhouette-style graphite and ink drawings on paper is highly distinctive: simplified yet confident and sharply defined. [1]

1. For examples of Niviaqsi’s original drawings on paper see First Arts, 10 June 2024, Lot 86 and First Arts, 5 December 2022, Lot 20. See also Walker’s Auctions, 22 November 2017, Lot 16; and Gerald McMaster, ed., Inuit Modern: The Samuel and Esther Sarick Collection, (Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 2010), pp. 72-73.