Since its first appearance, Niviaqsi’s Man Hunting at Seal Hole in Ice has been celebrated for the strength of its conception. The print possesses a directness that feels unadorned, not from naïveté or plainness, but from its focus on what is essential. Nothing is wasted, nothing distracts. In its economy, the work achieves a presence that feels both deliberate and monumental.

The hunter appears as a figure condensed almost to pure form and gesture. His limbs are bent in readiness, his weight pressed downward, every contour charged with anticipation. His body fills the page almost entirely, with only a relatively slim border of untouched paper surrounding him, making him a monumental embodiment of vigilance. The figure communicates endurance not through motion but through suspension, a body trained to hold itself in readiness for the exact moment when a seal surfaces at an aglu (seal breathing hole).

By contrast, this seal hole is minute, yet its centrality cannot be overlooked. Placed near the middle of the sheet and right between the hunter’s legs, it acts as the compositional anchor. The eye returns to it repeatedly, drawn by the knowledge that survival may depend upon this one small aperture. In relation to the hunter’s scale, it feels almost like a pulse on the page, modest in size but essential in meaning.

Executed in stencil by Iyola Kingwatsiak, the medium demonstrates how restraint can generate intensity. Pigment gathers at the bends of the hunter’s knees and the folds of his arms, forming shadows that carry bulk and weight. These variations offer a tactile sense of depth, like tension accumulating in the body of the figure.

This impression, like others from the edition of thirty, is dated May 1959. Its inscription situates it within a brief but formative interval in the Kinngait studio, when prints were marked with the month between April and June. That small notation ties the work to a moment of experimentation, when artists were testing both process and image, establishing the foundations for one of Kinngait’s most acclaimed print releases.

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References: This famous print has been widely reproduced since its release, see: “Art: Land of the Bear,” Time Magazine, 22 Feb 1960, p. 66; Robert McKeown, "A New Art from the North," Weekend Magazine (Montreal?), page no. unknown; James A. Houston, Eskimo Prints, (Barre, MA, USA: Barre Publishers, 1967), p. 20; Christine Lalonde and Leslie Boyd Ryan, Uuturautiit: Cape Dorset 1959-2009, (Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 2009), #26, p.33. Norman Vorano, Inuit Prints: Japanese Inspiration, (Gatineau: Canadian Museum of Civilization, 2011), cat. 21, p. 79. The drawing from which this print derives can be seen in Gerald McMaster, ed., Inuit Modern: The Samuel and Esther Sarick Collection, (Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 2010), p. 72. This print can be seen in Rosemary Gilliat’s photograph of the print studio, taken for the NFB, which is reproduced in Terry Ryan’s “Dorset Revisited" in Cape Dorset Prints: A Retrospective, (San Francisco: Pomegranate, 2007), p. 42, as well in a photograph with the artists in op. cit.,