By his early twenties, Osuitok was selling ivory carvings to Roman Catholic missionaries, visiting sailors, and members of the RCMP. In the 1950s, he began producing pictorial engravings or “scrimshaw“ on walrus tusks. Engraving on ivory and bone is an exacting process in which designs are incised into a prepared surface and darkened with ink, graphite, or soot. Unlike sculpture, the result is fundamentally two dimensional, closer to drawing in form and spirit.

A well-known tale, recounted by James Houston, captures the moment when this practice connected to printmaking. According to Houston, Osuitok wondered aloud how tedious it must be for someone to paint identical images on every package of Player’s cigarettes. To illustrate printing, Houston inked one of Osuitok’s scrimshawed tusks and pulled an impression using sanitary tissue. That simple demonstration gave rise to the Cape Dorset Annual Graphics Collection, now recognized internationally. Curiously, despite his role in this origin story, Osuitok produced only six prints in total, none of them after 1959.

Although the tusk is unsigned, we are confident in attributing it to the hand of the master. The precision of the line is remarkable, revealing both control and sensitivity. Some figures are darkly shaded, while others are defined with a lighter touch, demonstrating a deliberate balance. Among the many accomplished pictorial elements, the arctic hare stands out, rendered with exceptional grace and subtlety.

MBL

References: For more information on Osuitok’s early life and his influence on Inuit prints see Blodgett, Jean. "Osuitok Ipeelee." In Inuit Art: An Anthology, edited by Alma Houston, pp 47–55. Winnipeg: Watson & Dwyer Publishing, 1988. For more on his 'scrimshaw' works, see also Darlene Coward Wight, Early Masters: Inuit Sculpture 1949-1955 (Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 2006), pp. 148-151. For images of contemporaneous 'scrimshaw' works by the artist see Waddington’s, Toronto, 5 November 2012, Lot 85, and Waddington’s, Toronto, 2 May 2011, Lot 193