ANNIE NIVIAXIE (1930-1989), KUUJJUARAPIK (GREAT WHALE RIVER)
Mother and Child, c. 1968-70
stone, 5.5 x 4 x 4 in (14 x 10.2 x 10.2 cm)
unsigned.

Provenance
Waddington's, 23 January 2020, Lot 49, as "signed in syllabics";
Acquired from the above by the present Private Collection, Toronto.

Apart from Salluit (Sugluk) and Kuujjuaraapik (Great Whale River), few Nunavik (Arctic Quebec) communities have had more than a handful of female sculptors. Annie Niviaxie began carving in the 1960s and by the 1970s had become a popular and prolific artist. Her mostly small carvings of mothers and children are instantly recognizable for their stylized facial features and rather formulaic standing poses. To us, her more substantial and more complex works are far more interesting. Lovely examples include Mother and Two Children from 1966 (see Sculpture/Inuit, cat. 280), and a seated Mother and Children from 1968, illustrated in the 1988 Indian & Northern Affairs Canada publication Canadian Inuit Sculpture (fig. 8). The latter is quite similar in style to this lovely and charming Mother and Child. Annie Niviaxie was also a talented sealskin wall hanging and basketry artist.

References: For a similar example by Annie Niviaxie see George Swinton, Sculpture of the Inuit, (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1972/92), fig. 122, p. 93. See also Canadian Eskimo Arts Council, Sculpture / Inuit: Masterworks of the Canadian Arctic, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1971), cat. 280; and Indian & Northern Affairs Canada, Canadian Inuit Sculpture, (Gatineau: Indian & Northern Affairs Canada, 1988), fig. 8.