Lot 118
NALENIK TEMELA (1939-2003) KIMMIRUT (LAKE HARBOUR)
Dancing Bear, 2001
stone, 16.25 x 13.5 x 6.5 in (41.3 x 34.3 x 16.5 cm)
signed and dated, "ᓇᓕᓂ / ᑎᒥᓚ / 01".

Provenance
Maslak McLeod Gallery, Toronto;
Acquired from the above by the present Private Collection, Toronto, 2001.

Despite his own diminutive stature, many of Nalenik Temela's sculptures are massive and powerful looking. His monumental depictions of bears, which had a unique texture created by contrasting matte torsos and limbs with highly polished heads and paws, are his best-known works. Although perhaps inspired by the Cape Dorset sculptor Pauta Saila's "dancing bear" theme, Nalenik created his own distinctive style. His bears’ bodies are often contorted, more closely resembling the works of Pauta's colleague Aqjangajuk Shaa. Nalenik's best works feature a massive body with sinuous curves flowing seamlessly from the head and limbs. Small details like the creased snout and angry eyebrows contribute to the ferocity of the bear's roar. In this mid-sized but still quite hefty Dancing Bear the torso is comparatively small in relation to the animal’s thick neck and limbs. But it is the bear’s massive paws and head that truly dominate the work.

Nalenik started carving when he was fifteen years old in the mid 1950s, beginning with small walrus tusk carvings and progressing to larger stone portraits of bears and other animals. Nalenik and his family lived in camps on the land until the late 1970s, after which they moved to Kimmirut permanently. Nalenik had an old-school approach to carving, and he relied on the shape of the stone to determine what would emerge. Nalenik preferred using simple, homemade hand tools to create his art.

References: For other, albeit larger examples of Nalenik bears, see First Arts, Toronto, 12 July 2020, Lot 99; First Arts, and Toronto, 5 December 2022, Lot 152. For further examples of bears by the artist see Amway Environmental Foundation, Masters of the Arctic: Art in the Service of the Earth (1990), cover and pp. 66-67. The international touring exhibition was inaugurated at the United Nations General Assembly Gallery in NYC. See also George Swinton, Sculpture of the Inuit, (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1992), fig. 893. For an interesting Seated Bear by the artist from the early 1970s see Walker's Auctions, May 2013, Lot 93.