Additional Images

Provenance:

Private Collection, Ottawa, ON

Note:

Perhaps one of the best known and most iconic Inuit artists of the early 20th century, Akeeaktashuk’s sculpture was much lauded during his own time.[1] The attention given to his work made him highly influential among fellow sculptors as well as among early collectors.

No works by Akeeaktashuk can be dated past 1953, when the artist and his family were relocated to Qikiqtaaluk (Craig Harbour) and later Aujuittuq (Grise Fiord) in a misguided government project that promised to improve living conditions through the increased availability of game.[2]

A supremely talented artist whose extended family included Johnny Inukpuk and Pilipusi Novalinga, Akeeaktashuk’s sculptures remain distinctly recognizable despite his influence among his contemporaries.[3] Speaking of Akeeaktashuk in his memoir Confessions of An Igloo Dweller, James Houston recalled: “...He was the best of all the carvers trading into Inukjuak, at a time when important men like Sywooli, Johnny Inukpuk, Amidilak, and Isa Smiler were busy revealing their new talents with every new carving that they created.”[4]

Beautifully carved and finished, Hunter Capturing a Seal exhibits a special attention to detail in the figure, but also in peripheral elements of the sculpture. Notable is Akeeaktashuk’s sensitive articulation of the upper surface of the base, whose undulating surface evokes the uneven ice below. The slightly hunched posture of the hunter leads the eye of the viewer to the head of the seal, whose presence provides a curious compositional balance through the implied presence of its body below.

[1] Darlene Coward Wight, Early Masters: Inuit Sculpture 1949-1955 (Winnipeg, MB: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 2006), 29-30.
[2] Samia Madwar, “Inuit High Arctic Relocations in Canada,” The Canadian Encyclopedia, July 25, 2018, https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/inuit-high-arctic-relocations.
[3] Wight. 30.
[4] James Houston, Confessions of an Igloo Dweller (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1995), 20.