PARR (1893-1969) KINNGAIT (CAPE DORSET)
People and Geese, July 1961
graphite laid paper, 23.5 x 18 in (59.7 x 45.7 cm)
unsigned;
inscribed and dated in graphite by Terry Ryan, "Parr 7/61";
with blind embossed WBEC stamp

Provenance
Collection of John and Joyce Price, Seattle, WA.

Parr was in his late sixties when he was approached by Terry Ryan to pursue an art career in the spring of 1961. People and Geese, with its heavy and frenetic graphite lines, encapsulates the early style of drawing that established Parr as one of the most interesting artists working in Kinngait at this time. His fertile memories of a traditional lifestyle that included hunting and fishing had a lasting and energizing effect on his work. As with lot 43, People and Geese cannot be categorized as a narrative scene but, instead, presents as a display. In grid-like repetition, Parr puts on view the essential elements of a goose hunt. The four geese are characteristically depicted in profile, their forms arrayed with a system of simple shapes. Each of the nine people is shown frontally, with oversized heads and tent-shaped clothing, short arms outstretched, and diminutive legs and feet. They exhibit the abbreviated “dot and dash” facial features that Parr would employ throughout his career. While the human figures are all quite similar, their face shapes are described with some variation. Five of the nine heads are encircled with a secondary circle, the interiors of which are built up with heavy lines. While the motive for such a design feature is not known, the effect achieved serves to individualize Parr’s assembly of people. While they seem to float on the page, the cast of Parr’s composition are laden with his fizzing style of mark making, with no obvious strategy for placement, giving the figures a sense of corporeality and presence.

References: For an overview of Parr’s stylistic progression see Marion Jackson, Parr: His Drawings, (Halifax, Mount Saint Vincent University, 1988), and Ingo Hessel, “The Drawings of Parr: A Closer Look,” Inuit Art Quarterly, Fall 1998, Vol. 3, No. 4, p.12-20. For works from a similar period, see Gerald McMaster ed., Inuit Modern: The Samuel and Esther Sarick Collection, (Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 2010), p. 166-167.