This print has been widely reproduced, including in Inuit Prints: Japanese Inspiration by Norman Vorano (Gatineau: Canadian Museum of Civilization, 2011), fig. 9, p. 8. The ground colour of this reproduced print is close to the present lot.

Despite their popularity, the origins of the experimental prints of 1957/58 in Cape Dorset remain steeped in mystery. Sandra Barz records that this print was originally credited to Kudlalak. Yet Mungitok, with the support of Joanassie Salamonie and his own wife, later asserted authorship. Terry Ryan, in a 1990 personal communication with Barz, agreed that the style is unmistakably Mungitok’s, adding weight to the counterclaim.

Complicating matters further, James Houston noted that the image was originally drawn from an ivory tusk carved by Kudlalak, who he believed had already passed away by 1958 (personal communication to Jean Blodgett, November 1, 1980, shared by Barz). The very same image resurfaced later under the title Niglik (Geese), printed on a Christmas card credited to “Kumuak,” a name Houston revealed was likely invented. Meaning “louse” in Inuktitut, kumuak was, according to Houston, a tongue-in-cheek alias adopted during playful card-making sessions.

We are confident, as are most scholars, that the work is by Mungitok. But in some ways, it hardly matters. This image is less a statement of authorship than a snapshot of atmosphere—a still frame from a moment when everything was in motion. It signals just how improvisational the artistic landscape of the late 1950s truly was in Kinngait, when artists were still discovering what printmaking could be. Tools were unfamiliar, conventions hadn’t yet calcified, and every line carved or drawn felt like a step into uncharted terrain. It was a time defined not by certainty, but by creative possibility.

And what emerges from that creative frontier is something remarkably tender: four geese, rising from frozen ground, rendered with a quiet intimacy. It is a small-scale work with outsized resonance, a print that reminds us that even in periods of flux and uncertainty, beauty can ascend, soft-winged and sure.