Lot 98
JOE TALIRUNILI (1893-1976)

Provenance:
Private Collection, Montreal, QC
By descent to the present owner,
Private Collection, Montreal, QC
Note:
“In this small boat the people are cramped together as they want to live – always to face death.”
-Joe Talirunili in Joe Talirunili: A Grace Beyond the Reach of Art, 1977, as quoted Falconer, Shelley & Shawna White, Stones, Bones and Stitches: Storytelling through Inuit Art, McMichael Canadian Art Collection (Kleinburg, ON) with Tundra Books, (Toronto, ON), 2007 pp. 14-15
This work recounts the harrowing journey of the artist’s own childhood adventure. He and the other survivors of a shipwreck are depicted on a crowded umiak - a hastily constructed skin boat - paddling through breaking ice floes in an attempt to reach safety.