Lot 158
John Tiktak ᔭᓐ ᑎᑕ, RCA (1916-1981)
Additional Images
Provenance:
Waddington's Auctioneers, Toronto, ON, 15 Dec 1981, lot 483
Private Collection, Charlottesville, VA
Exhibited:
Inuit Art from the Canadian Arctic, Bayly Art Museum, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, 1994
Note:
This delightfully jaunty and expressive figure by John Tiktak is characterised by one of the artist’s most recognizable stylistic devices: the arms defined in loops of stone, separated from the torso by oval-shaped excavated areas. In the present work, the feature seems particularly suggestive of a man standing, slightly hunched with his hands in his pockets. The figure’s face appears joyous. The compressed eyes and whisper of a smile on the figure is almost evocative of the peaceful faces of Tiktak’s Arviat contemporary John Pangnark. Like so many of Tiktak’s reserved portraits, Man with Hands in His Pockets rewards close inspection and viewing in-the-round.