As noted, this work was in the collection of Ernst Roch (1928-2003) and can be seen on a shelf in Roch’s studio in a 1963 photograph by Sam Tata, now in the collection of the National Gallery of Canada (EX-78-495).

Roch was a prominent Montreal graphic designer and an important figure in Canadian modernist design and his engagement with Inuit art was neither passing nor peripheral. In 1974, he edited and designed Arts of the Eskimo: Prints, published by Signum Press, the Montreal art publishing house he co-founded with designer Rolf Harder, in association with Oxford University Press. The ambitious volume surveyed printmaking across the Canadian Arctic, reproducing more than one hundred works alongside artist biographies and essays by Patrick Furneaux and Leo Rosshandler. Roch had earlier co-published and co-designed Pitseolak: Pictures Out of My Life, devoted to Pitseolak Ashoona’s images and recollections.

Roch's ownership is, therefore, of interest beyond simple provenance. To see the present work sitting on a shelf in his studio is to see it not merely as something he owned but as an object that entered the visual life of a man whose own practice as a designer was deeply attuned to line, proportion, interval, and the overall force of a work.

It is entirely understandable that Roch was enamoured by this work. This formidable Determined Hunter, with Harpoon and Knife impresses in both scale and form. At nearly a foot and a half tall, the figure possesses a substantial physical presence, matched by the power and precision of its carving.

We are immediately struck by the hunter’s determination and power as he heads out, jaw set and teeth clenched, in pursuit of his unseen game. Though the hunter stands alone, he is far from isolated. His forward stride, ready harpoon and knife all activate the surrounding space, extending his movement beyond the confines of the stone. His keen gaze fixes upon something beyond us, while the space before him seems charged with the anticipation of the hunt. His catch remains unseen but its imagined presence gives the sculpture a distinctly narrative quality. We encounter this hunter at the start of his journey, it seems, when body, weapon and unseen prey are held within a single field of action.

ND