Cape Dorset sculptors have always been open to experimenting with different stone types. There are deposits of white marble dotted across southern Baffin Island; beginning in the late 1960s, a deposit in Andrew Gordon Bay was the source for the calcite-rich – and thus, fairly coarse – white marble used by some Kinngait artists well into the 1970s [1]. Osuitok declared this marble to be the most difficult stone he had carved, “It takes patience, a lot of work and a lot of courage” [2].

Osuitok may have quietly cursed this stone as he carved it – using only his regular hand tools – but the result of his effort is undeniably beautiful. Osuitok’s intuition about material was unfailing; he sensed that this coarse marble would be most successfully utilized through an interplay between simple, broad shapes and planes, and a few more carefully carved details. The woman’s lovely braids and her skin bag stand out perfectly against the smooth curves of her delicate face and head and the more expansive planes of her clothing. Osuitok was not constrained by the rather columnar shape of the stone either. He took liberties with the proportions of the woman’s lower legs, yet just the same, she cuts quite an elegant figure. The serpentine profile of her body is, in fact, quite sensuous.

We also feel it is important to pay tribute to the profoundly moving and even transcendent nature of this work of art. The mother’s kneeling posture, with a bowl held in her hands, lends an almost votive aspect to the sculpture. More than any Osuitok Mother and Child we can recall, this work has an aura of the religious. And finally, we wish to draw attention to a truly charming touch: the way the young boy gently rests his arm on his mother’s head. Marvelous.

1. Other sculptors who tackled this stone with some success were Pauta Saila, Latcholassie Akesuk, Qaqaq Ashoona, and Paulassie Pootoogook. For another lovely example by Osuitok, see Susan Gustavison, Northern Rock: Contemporary Inuit Stone Sculpture, (Kleinburg: McMichael Canadian Art Collection, 1999), cat. 12, p. 78.

2. The artist quoted in Jean Blodgett’s article “Osuitok Ipeelee” in Alma Houston, ed., Inuit Art: An Anthology, (Winnipeg: Watson and Dwyer, 1988), p. 49.