Figure: John Pangnark ᔭᓐ ᐸᓇ

A great collection is rarely the work of a single individual. It is through the many intersections with collectors, dealers, scholars and auction houses that items accumulate histories beyond their origins, telling stories of connoisseurship, discovery, and geography. Join us in a look at the third of four featured lots with exceptional provenance in our Major auction of Inuit Art.

An artist’s sensibilities were perhaps never better suited to the materials available to them than John Pangnark’s were to the hard, unyielding stone of Arviat, where he settled in the 1950s following his early years living off the land.[1]

The first documented sculptures by Pangnark, while abstract, have readily identifiable anatomical elements, a characteristic that would recede in later works, subsumed by an increasing degree of abstraction.

From within the natural character and geometry of the stone emerge the hard edges of a figure cloaked in silhouette. A defining characteristic of the artist’s work, the figure’s simple face radiates calm—a whisper of fine lines rendered with the utmost subtlety.

The present sculpture comes from the collection of renowned Dutch-Canadian photographer John DeVisser, whose photographs have been a defining vision of Canada since the early 1960s.

DeVisser built a small but important collection of Inuit art shaped by personal experiences, and intimate relationships with Inuit during his travels.

He began collecting during a 1965 commission in the Arctic to photograph Inuit artists, and a later journey through Siberia with iconic Canadian author Farley Mowat. Both DeVisser and Mowat were evidently attracted to Canada’s wild, rugid places and to the stalwart, humble people who Mowat once said made hospitable such environments only through “the crucible of their own endurance”.[2]

[1] Norman Zepp, Pure Vision, The Keewatin Spirit (Regina: Norman Mackenzie Art Gallery University of Regina, 1986), 75.

[2] Farley Mowat, This Rock Within The Sea: A Heritage Lost (Boston: Brown Little, 1968)

Provenance
John de Visser Collection, Ontario
An Important Two-Generation Private Collection

ABOUT THE AUCTION

Highlights of our 2026 major fall auction of Inuit Art include major works by Abraham Etungat, Osuitok Ipeelee, Henry Evaluardjuk, Pudlo Pudlat, Tudlik, Niviaxie, Kenojuak Ashevak, Barnabus Arnasungaaq, Lukta Qiatsuk, Ningiukulu Teevee, Pitaloosie Saila, Kananginak Pootoogook, and John Kavik. Also included is a small collection of ancient Arctic ivories.

Browse the gallery online.

On view at our Toronto gallery:

Saturday, November 14 from 12 pm to 4 pm
Sunday, November 15 from 12 pm to 4 pm
Monday, November 16 from 10 am to 5 pm
Tuesday, November 17 from 10 am to 7 pm
Wednesday, November 18 from 10 am to 5 pm

Or by appointment.

Contact us for more information at [email protected]