POSSIBLY JOE JAW (1930-1987) KINNGAIT (CAPE DORSET)
Snarling Polar Bear, c. 1960
stone, 4.5 x 11 x 2.5 in (11.4 x 27.9 x 6.3 cm)
unsigned.

Provenance
Collection of Vivian Julien, a schoolteacher who worked in the Canadian Arctic from the late 1950s until the mid 1970s;
by descent to a Private Collection, Ontario.

The possible attribution to Joe Jaw is based on an intriguingly similar work, Fantasy Dog from c. 1961, formerly in the Robertson Collection [1]. Jaw began carving c. 1950 and was active in the very early 1960s but never prolific. Relatively few works are definitively attributed to the artist, yet Fantasy Dog alone marks him as a great talent. Snarling Polar Bear shares with that work a wonderfully attenuated body and a similarly expressive snarling visage. We suggest that our example dates perhaps a year or so before the Robertson work. It’s a prime example of the early sixties Cape Dorset carving style that we have always admired.1. See Blodgett, The Robertson Collection, 1986, cat. 19; Gustavison, Northern Rock, 1999, cat. 5.