Additional Images

Provenance:

The Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Pat Furneaux, Ontario
Waddington's Auctioneers, Toronto, ON, 30 Apr 1979, lot 16
Private Collection, Charlottesville, VA

Literature:

George Swinton, Sculpture of the Eskimo (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Ltd., 1972), 174, pl. 387.

Exhibited:

Povungnituk Imaginative Sculpture Competition, Puvirnituq (Povungnituk), QC, 1967.
George Swinton, Eskimo Fantastic Art, Gallery 111, School of Art, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, 10-29 Jan 1972, The Student Union Art Gallery, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, 6 Feb-3 Mar 1972, Burnaby Art Gallery, Burnaby, BC, 11-28 Mar 1972.

Note:

In 1967 an art competition was sponsored in Puvirnituq (Povungnituk) by Dr. Nelson H. H. Graburn as part of his research on contemporary artists and art activities. The idea was for local carvers to sculpt pieces of originality, thought and imagination, independent of potential commercial influences. The competition was judged by Nelson Graburn and Pat Furneaux. Entries were later organized by George Swinton into a traveling exhibition, the second installment in a series of influential traveling collections of Inuit art, the first of which was a solo exhibit dedicated to the sculpture of John Tiktak.

The present lot was one of a total of 80 works of sculpture and graphics exhibited from entries in the 1967 competition, and comes from the collection of Pat Furneaux, Northern affairs administrator in Puvirnituq, and co-judge of the 1967 competition. (1)

(1) Waddington’s Auctioneers, An Important Sale of Inuit Art (Toronto: Francis Graphics, 1979), 7; George Swinton, Eskimo Fantastic Art (Winnipeg: Hignell Printing, 1972).