A Sickness for Which There Is No Cure: The Passionate Collecting of Dr. Norman Epstein

Dr. Epstein would go on to purchase more Inuit artwork, guided by pioneering figures in the Canadian art scene, including Avrom Isaacs, Harold Seidelman, and M.F. (Budd) Feheley. However, he remained true to his own sensibilities and personal preferences, building a collection almost solely composed of sculpture, preferring the medium’s “tactility” and “spiritual warmth” over Inuit graphics.

Dr. Epstein displayed artworks in his offices for the pleasure of his many patients, selecting mother and child scenes for his waiting room, and including bears in his office. His passion also extended to artworks in ivory and whalebone. Over the years, Dr. Epstein owned several significant works by Karoo Ashevak and kept the most important, Drum Dancer, which was exhibited in the small but influential show The Spirit of the Land at the Koffler Gallery in Toronto in 1986. Dr. Epstein’s important collection of small ivory sculpture by Arviliqjuaq (Pelly Bay) artist Augustin Anaittuq was the subject of a solo exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario in 1985, and later exhibited alongside one of his favourite Pauta bears in the landmark 1988–1991 Canadian Museum of History exhibition In the Shadow of the Sun.

The significance of holding national exhibitions was part of Dr. Epstein’s firm conviction about the cultural value of his chosen collecting field, stating emphatically in the 1990 IAQ interview, “Inuit art is a Canadian heritage.” Ever passionate, Dr. Epstein drove the point home, recollecting with gusto a story about once selecting an Inuit mother and child sculpture over a “beautiful Emily Carr painting” offered to him by a dealer.

By the 1990s, Dr. Epstein was making fewer changes to his collection. While often shared with the public, the collection was also deeply personal for him, treasured through its many iterations over 60 years. Dr. Epstein notes of his sculptures at the close of the article, “I love them so much, which may be a sickness for which there is no cure.”