Lot 49
PETER INUKSHUK (1896-1975) QAMANI’TUAQ (BAKER LAKE)
Standing Man (The King), 1969
stone, 8.75 x 5.5 x 2.75 in (22.2 x 14 x 7 cm)
signed and inscribed, "ᐃᓄᓱ / ᓴᓇᔭᒐ [I made] / ᐱᓓᑐᐊ [it is good] in graphite to the accompanying tag;
inscribed "399" in ink, probably by a member of the "Sculpture / Inuit" exhibition team.

Provenance
Collection of Mr. Jack Butler, acquired directly from the artist.
Jack and Sheila Butler were arts advisors in Baker Lake in the crucial years of artistic flowering in the community from 1969 to 1976.

Exhibited
Canadian Eskimo Arts Council, organizers, Sculpture / Inuit: Masterworks of the Canadian Arctic, travelling exh., Vancouver, Vancouver Art Gallery, 9 Nov 1971 - 9 Dec 1971; Paris, France, Le Grand Palais, 10 Feb - 2 April 1972; Copenhagen, Nationalmuseet, 26 April - 28 May 1972; Saint Petersburg [Leningrad], The Hermitage, 29 June -23 July 1972; Moscow, Pushkin Fine Arts Museum, 10 Aug - 10 Sept 1972; London, UK, Burlington Gardens Museum, 5 October - 10 Dec 1972; Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Museum of Art, - 24 Jan 1972- 4 March 1973; Ottawa, National Museum of Man, [?]; Ottawa, National Gallery of Canada, 18 May 1973- 17 June 1973, cat. 399.

Published
Canadian Eskimo Arts Council, Sculpture / Inuit: Masterworks of the Canadian Arctic , (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1971), cat. 399, unpaginated;
George Swinton, Sculpture of the Inuit, (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1972/92), fig. 57, p. 38.

Peter Inukshuk, a contemporary of the elder artist Anguhadluq, was not known to be a carver earlier in the 1960s and was quite possibly first encouraged to try his hand at sculpture in 1969 by Jack Butler, the newly arrived arts advisor. His works are relatively few, but all are very interesting; we know of a handful of lovely spirit birds and several standing male figures, almost all of them nudes. Of these latter works, this Standing Man (The King) is the most important. Jack Butler has always treasured the cheeky little note that Inukshuk provided with the sculpture that he was told, in effect, states, “This is good because I made it” or possibly, “I made this, and I know it’s good.”

Well, declaring that the sculpture is good was putting it mildly. The work is a masterpiece, and a remarkably cheeky one at that. Part of the work’s brilliance is its ambiguity. It is titled Standing Man but the figure’s proportions are more that of a young child. It’s almost impossible to be offended by the image since it has an almost childlike innocence. The King’s small body is carved in a quite rudimentary fashion. Clearly the artist was more interested in focusing on its genitalia and the impressively large head. The man seems to be laughing or singing – suspicious minds might suggest that the subtitle The King refers to Elvis. Any way you look at it, this sculpture is utterly charming and completely disarming in its saucy and irreverent humour.

References: For similar examples by the artist see Jean Blodgett, The Coming and Going of the Shaman: Eskimo Shamanism and Art, (Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 1978), cat. 24, p. 69; Darlene Coward Wight, The Faye and Bert Settler Collection, (Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 2004), p. 64; and Winnipeg Art Gallery, The Zazelenchuk Collection of Eskimo Art, (Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 1978), cat. 14, p. 24.