Manasie Akpaliapik was born on the land on northern Baffin Island; his family moved into Arctic Bay when he was twelve. He began school there and continued in boarding school in Iqaluit. After a restless and rebellious youth, Manasie married and started a family in Arctic Bay, only to have his life turned upside down when his wife and children died tragically in a fire around 1980. He moved to Montreal and began carving professionally, then in 1985 moved to Toronto and began to carve feverishly, encouraged by gallerist Harold Seidelman. Power of the Shaman was carved in preparation for an important solo exhibition of some fifty works organized by Darlene Wight at the Winnipeg Art Gallery in 1990.

Like many of Akpaliapik’s works, this powerful, mask-like sculpture exhibits a high degree of psychological tension. The shaman’s ears and teeth suggest that he is in the throes of transformation. Interestingly, this work strongly resembles a whale bone sculpture by (coincidentally) Manasie Maniapik (b. 1939) from Pangnirtung, illustrated in George Swinton’s second book [1]. It’s quite likely that the younger Manasie saw the illustration and was inspired to make his own version, perhaps in the spirit of friendly competition. Despite the similarity, the sculptural treatment is pure “Akpaliapik.” Terrific.

1. George Swinton, Sculpture of the Inuit, (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1972/92), fig. 207, p. 139.

References: For important works by Manasie Akpaliapik, see Darlene Wight, Manasie: The Art of Manasie Akpaliapik (Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 1990); Ingo Hessel, Inuit Art: An Introduction, (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre / New York: Harry Abrams / London: British Museum Press, 1998), pl. 56, p. 76; First Arts, 13 July 2021, Lot 7; First Arts, 10 June 2024, Lot 15. See George Swinton’s analysis of Manasie’s sculpture in “The Art of Manasie Akpaliapik: A Review Essay” in Inuit Art Quarterly (Spring 1991:42-45). See Gerald McMaster, ed., Inuit Modern: The Samuel and Esther Sarick Collection, (Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 2010), p. 74, and George Swinton, Sculpture of the Inuit, (Toronto: M&S, 1992 edition only), fig. 828. For several other examples of Manasie’s sculpture see Harold Seidelman and James Turner, The Inuit Imagination: Arctic Myth and Sculpture, (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1993).