In the early to mid-1950s, artists in Kinngait often worked with difficult materials, carving from small and irregular stones that were sometimes little more than found pebbles. The sculptures that emerged from this scarcity carry a striking material honesty, their forms defined as much by limitation as by invention. This example has an archaic gravity, its presence heightened by the stone’s modest scale.

Our attribution to Pudlo Pudlat is supported by a compositionally similar work reproduced in Jean Blodgett’s Cape Dorset, (Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 1980), cat. 49, p. 89. Pudlo was a central figure in the art of Cape Dorset. He is best remembered for his works on paper — more than 4,000 drawings and 234 graphics — but he was also a gifted sculptor until an arm injury forced him to abandon the medium. His minimalist sculptures focus on the animals upon which Inuit survival depended, with a particular devotion to birds, two of which were shown in the landmark Sculpture/Inuit exhibition.

This palm-sized sculpture unites a tattooed face, an owl, and a polar bear. The grouping forms a striking triumvirate, a meditation on how Inuit life was interlaced with the land and its creatures.