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PARR (1893-1969) KINNGAIT (CAPE DORSET)
Printmaker: IYOLA KINGWATSIAK (1933-2000) KINNGAIT (CAPE DORSET)
Blue Geese Feeding, 1961, #39
stencil print, 30 x 25 in (76.2 x 63.5 cm)
50/50
SOLD
One the most celebrated of Parr’s prints, Blue Geese Feeding presents a gaggle of geese as flat but shimmering silhouettes. Stencilled by the master printmaker Iyola Kingwatsiak in the iridescent blue that is associated with the classic and early prints of Kinngait, it is the only one of the first four prints based on Parr’s early drawings that is not a stonecut. While it lacks the sense of the artist’s trademark scratchy drawing style, it nonetheless brilliantly evokes the artist’s slightly abstracted, dreamy image of the birds. As depicted by Parr these geese could not possibly stand, yet we are mesmerized at they march across our field of view as in a mirage.
Blue Geese Feeding is one of Parr’s most widely published and exhibited prints. The image has been reproduced in numerous important publications including: W. T. Larmour, Inunnit, (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1967); Bernadette Driscoll, Uumajut, (Winnipeg Art Gallery, 1985) p. 76, pl. 49; Marion E. Jackson, Parr: His Drawings (Halifax: Art Gallery, Mount Saint Vincent University, 1988) p.10; Alma Houston ed., Inuit Art: An Anthology (Winnipeg: Watson & Dwyer, 1988) p. 39/60; Susan Gustavison, Arctic Expressions: Inuit Art and the Canadian Eskimo Arts Council, 1961-1989 (Kleinburg: McMichael Canadian Art Collection, 1994) p. 19; Leslie Boyd Ryan, Cape Dorset Prints: A Retrospective (Pomegranate, 2007) p. 57; and elsewhere.