Additional Images

Provenance:

Private Collection, Toronto, ON

Note:

Carved by an unidentified artist while in residence at the Mountain Sanatorium (now Chedoke Campus) in Hamilton, Ontario, this simple but elegantly carved early sculpture of a walrus is typical of the work made at the Sanatorium circa 1958.

The Mountain Sanatorium in Hamilton was a facility designated as a tuberculosis treatment center for the Eastern Arctic which hosted over 1,200 Inuit between 1953 and 1963.

As a form of occupational therapy, and at the request of hospital residents, male patients would carve, while women would sew, embroider, and make dolls in their beds. [1] Many carvings made during stays at the sanatorium are unsigned and remain unidentified.

(1) Sutherland, Caitlin, “Carving Home: The Chedoke Collection of Inuit Art”, Inuit Art Quarterly. December 5, 2017.

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