LUCY TASSEOR TUTSWEETOK (1934-2012) Arviat (Eskimo Point)
Family Group, c. mid-late 1970s
stone, 7.5 x 8.5 x 5 (19.1 x 21.6 x 12.7 cm)
signed, "ᑕᓯᐅ / ᓗᓯ / ᑐᓱᐊᑐ".

ESTIMATE: $7,000 — $10,000

Provenance
Waddington's, Toronto, November 2003, Lot 370;
Acquired from the above Norman Zepp & Judith Varga, Saskatoon, SK.

This beautiful example of Tasseor’s classic mature style from the mid-late 1970s perfectly illustrates her willingness to follow the natural shape of the stone and to place the heads and faces of her subjects – a mother and her children – seemingly at random. But of course, they are not “randomly” placed; rather the children cluster mostly around the dominant figure of the mother, though it seems that several of the more adventurous ones have strayed quite far from her embrace. It’s a charming composition, full of movement and energized by the angularity of the stone. That odd tilt together with the boisterous nature of the children and the almost precarious slant of the mother’s body bring to mind the old nursery rhyme “There was an old woman who lived in a shoe…”!

For comparable works by Tasseor see Norman Zepp’s Pure Vision: The Keewatin Spirit (1986), cats. 39-41, pp. 93-95.

References: For a discussion of Tasseor’s work see Norman Zepp, Pure Vision: The Keewatin Spirit (Regina: Norman Mackenzie Art Gallery, 1986); for works see pp. 88-95.