LUKE ANGUHADLUQ (1895-1982) QAMANI’TUAQ (BAKER LAKE)
Caribou, Wolves, Figures, and Shaman, 1978
coloured pencil drawing, 22.25 x 29.75 in (56.5 x 75.6 cm)
signed, "ᐊᒍᓴᓗ" and with disc number.

ESTIMATE: $3,000 — $5,000

Provenance
Collection of Jack and Sheila Butler;
Feheley Fine Arts, Toronto;
Aquired from the above by John and Joyce Price, Seattle, 1999.

Exhibited
Toronto, Feheley Fine Arts, The Butler Collection: Early Baker Lake Drawings, 1999, p. 75.

Distinguished by Anguhadluq’s distinctive later drawing style with the generous swirls of vibrant colours in pencil crayon that the artist employed to realize his vision, this work presents an enigmatic scene that includes a hybrid caribou-shaman. Jean Blodgett notes that Anguhadluq sometimes portrayed hunters carrying parts of their catches, like caribou heads, in a way that makes them appear as if they have grown antlers, but she also acknowledges that other images clearly depict transformations. [1] This classic image surely presents the latter. It may be that the shaman is attempting to save the family’s potential catch from the predations of two wolves.

1. Blodgett, Tuu'luq / Anguhadluq, WAG, 1976, unpaginated.

References: For Anguhadluq drawings with similar “caribou-man” imagery see Jean Blodgett, Tuu'luq / Anguhadluq: An Exhibition of Works by Marion Tuu'luq and Luke Anguhadluq of Baker Lake (Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 1976), cats. 93, 102, 105, unpaginated; See also Cynthia Waye Cook, From the Centre: The Drawings of Luke Anguhadluq, (Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 1993), cat. 39, p. 80.