Provenance:

Private collection, Hamilton, ON

Note:

One of the first Inuit artists to experiment with printmaking, Talirunili’s work was included in most Puvirnituq (Povungnituk) collections. A total of 73 of his prints, some uncatalogued, have been put onto the market since 1962. [1]

Marybelle Myers notes in Joe Talirunili: A Grace Beyond the Reach of Art, that in the early 1970s Talirunili’s energy and interest in artmaking seemed to be flagging. However in 1974 he underwent an unexpected resurgence of energy, producing four stonecuts for the 1975 Povungnituk print collection, of which the present print is included. Talirunili would go on to make more than 35 remarkable sculptures for an exhibition in Toronto, followed by further creations in 1976, before his death later that year. [2]

Hunters Lost In Icebergs While Hunting Seals is a classic Talirunili composition. Full of epic imagery and the iconic, perhaps supernatural presence of owls—a favoured subject for the artist–the print is dense with narrative detail. The work is a surprisingly lively late iteration of his many images of trials by ocean and boat.

(1) Marybelle Myers, Joe Talirunili: A Grace Beyond the Reach of Art, (Quebec: La Federation des cooperatives du Nouveau-Quebec, 1977), 5.
(2) Myers, 6.