What is so compelling about the present Mother Nursing a Child is not only its beauty, but its place at the threshold of Isa Smiler’s mature artistic achievement. The present work belongs to the beginning of the sculptor’s sustained engagement with the mother and child theme that would become his central preoccupation in the first half of the 1950s.

Even at this early moment, the hallmarks of Smiler’s art are already in place. The seated mother is broad and full-bodied, enveloped by the generous volume of her amautiq. One arm slips from its sleeve to guide the child to the breast, while the other braces the infant from the front. The hood sweeps in a strong arc around her head. The trim and hairstyle are given real care. Most striking of all is her gaze, which turns not toward the child, but outward to meet our own.

Although Smiler himself later remarked that he only began carving “earnestly” in 1955-56 [1], James Houston had already described him as an accomplished artist by 1949 [2]. The present work helps reconcile these two facts. It has the freshness of an early effort, yet it is already fully possessed of the sculptor’s talented instincts. Within a year or so of carving this work, Smiler would arrive at the distinctive facial treatment that makes his later sculptures so immediately recognizable. Even so, the present work makes plain that the essential shape of that unique vision was already there from the start.

For many years, Smiler was not given the prominence he deserved among the early carvers of Inukjuak. That omission began to be corrected with Darlene Coward Wight’s 2006 Early Masters exhibition and catalogue, where three important Mother and Child works by the artist were illustrated. A few more have emerged since, including the magnificent Standing Mother and Child offered by First Arts on 14 June 2022 as Lot 21.

1. Isa Smiler, quoted in a 1977 Inuktitut magazine article reproduced in Darlene Coward Wight, Early Masters, 2006, p. 93.

2. James Houston, Confessions of an Igloo Dweller, 1995, p. 20.

FA