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Artworks
DAVIDIALUK ALASUA AMITTU (1910-1976) PUVIRNITUQ (POVUNGNITUK)
The One Who Suddenly Grew Big, c. 1958stone, 8.5 x 6 x 3.25 in (21.6 x 15.2 x 8.3 cm)
inscribed with disc number, signed, and inscribed, "E9 824 / DEVIDE / ᐅᓂᑲᑐᐊ ᓄᓚᔪᕕᓂ".LOT 44
ESTIMATE: $2,500 — $3,500Further images
Davidialuk’s inscription roughly translates to “a long story of one who suddenly grew big.” A fitting prelude to this unsettling legend. A similar sculpture appears in Inuit Stories: Povungnituk (1969/88,...Davidialuk’s inscription roughly translates to “a long story of one who suddenly grew big.” A fitting prelude to this unsettling legend. A similar sculpture appears in Inuit Stories: Povungnituk (1969/88, pp. 68-71), where a famine leads travellers to an abandoned igloo housing an infant girl grown to monstrous size. She wears her mother’s amautiq as a necklace and chases the group until, exhausted, she turns to stone.
In Davidialuk’s version, the child is a boy, a reminder that for him, myth was a living form, not a fixed script. What matters here is the visceral impact: strange, haunting, and utterly unforgettable.
Provenance
Galerie Elca London, Montreal;
Acquired from the above by John and Joyce Price, Seattle.
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