AKEEAKTASHUK (1898-1954) INUKJUAK (PORT HARRISON)
Hunter Capturing a Seal, early 1950s
stone, walrus tusk, sinew, and soap, 9 x 6 x 6 in (22.9 x 15.2 x 15.2 cm), measurements reflect depth with inset tool, without: 4 in (10.2 cm)

ESTIMATE: $10,000 — $15,000

Provenance
An Ottawa Collection.

James Houston promoted Akeeaktashuk as a “star” already by 1950 and remembered him this way: “...Akiaktasuk, a plump, cheerful hunter who had the overall appearance of a hard, brown leather football and who, I believe, was the first major carver whose work was widely recognized. (He was the best of all the carvers trading into Inukjuak, at a time when important men like Sywooli, Johnny Inukpuk, Amidilak, and Isa Smiler were busy revealing their new talents with every new carving that they created.)” [1] Apparently the southern press agreed; one enthusiastic Montreal newspaper reporter dubbed him “the Arctic Angelo.” [2] Akeeaktashuk’s career was sadly short-lived; he and his family were part of a group of Inuit tricked into being relocated to Ellesmere Island by a government eager to maintain Arctic sovereignty. These “High Arctic exiles” were moved first to Craig Harbour, then to Grise Fiord in 1953. Akeeaktashuk stopped carving and died in a walrus hunting accident the next year.

Akeeaktashuk’s sculptures probably helped create the romantic notion of Inuit as stoical hunters. His sculptures are undoubtedly compelling and timeless images, but they must have seemed quite modern as well and amazingly, they feel so even today. Looking at Hunter Capturing a Seal we are still impressed by Akeeaktashuk’s clarity of vision. The powerfully built hunter looks surprisingly light on his feet and we sense a subtle feeling of movement in his stance as he attends to his catch. For a hunting scene there is no sense of violence but instead, as with the best of this artist’s compositions, a quiet energy. The sculpture is beautifully carved and finished. We love the way the base has been subtly shaped to mimic the uneven texture of an ice floe, and especially delight in the sensitive treatment of the seal’s eyelashes and whiskers. The animal is not simply an anonymous prey, but rather a character in its own right in Akeeaktashuk’s narrative. It’s touching to realize that Akeeaktashuk probably loved and admired seals as much as Osuitok and Kananginak loved and admired caribou.

1. See James Houston’s first memoir, Confessions of an Igloo Dweller (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1995), p. 20.
2. Frank Lowe in The Montreal Daily Star, August 9, 1950, cited in Wight, Early Masters (WAG, 2006), p. 29.

References: See the section on the life and work of Akeeaktashuk in Darlene Coward Wight, Early Masters: Inuit Sculpture 1949-1955 (Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 2006), pp. 28-37. For a contemporaneous and similarly sized seal Hunter by Akeeaktashuk see Gerald McMaster, ed., Inuit Modern: The Samuel and Esther Sarick Collection, (Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 2010), p. 69.