Lot 202
Pinnie Nuktialuk ᐱᓂ (1930-1969)
Lot 202 Details
Pinnie Nuktialuk ᐱᓂ (1930-1969), Inukjuak (Port Harrison)
WOMAN MENDING KAMIK AND MAN FLENSING SEAL, CA. 1960
stone
unsigned; disc number inscribed; also inscribed with old inventory numbers "121" and "122"; accompanied by scans of the original invoice from The Snow Goose Gallery, and of a Canadian Arctic Producers Limited declaration, both dated 1975
largest 6.25 x 3.5 x 4.5 in — 15.9 x 8.9 x 11.4 cm
Estimate $700-$900
Additional Images
Provenance:
Private Collection, Charlottesville, VA
Note:
Little information is readily available about the talented early Inukjuak (Port Harrison) artist Pinnie Nuktialuk. Works by Pinnie show many of the finer aspects which characterise works of her Inukjuak contemporaries such as Eli Weetaluktuk, and perhaps most notably Johnny Inukpuk, the latter of whose camp she was a member. (1)
The confidence and consistency of style in these two sculptures, Woman Mending Kamik and Man Flensing Seal speak to her talents, as do the restrained flashes on fine detail found in the tassel of the man’s hat and the braids of the woman’s hair. The two sculptures, no doubt conceived as a pair, have in all likelihood been together since the time of their manufacture. Similar in scale and bearing near identical inscriptions, they might easily be titled Division of Labour, giving equal weight, as they do, to the separate, but mutually necessary tasks that have so often been divided between partners.
(1) Darlene Coward Wight, Early Masters: Inuit Sculpture 1949-1955 (Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 2006), 83.