Arctic artworks featured at Canadian auction
The Walker’s Inuit and First Nations Art auction is known for its focus on Canadian art from the Far North.
But at their auction in Canada’s capital city of Ottawa on Wednesday, November 18, the lots put up include not only First Nations works but also a wide selection of carvings, prints and sculptures from a range of Arctic regions, including Alaska and Greenland.
“This is our biggest auction ever,” said Ingo Hessel, head of the Inuit and First Nations Art Department at Walker’s Fine Art & Estate Auctions.
“It includes not only great masterpieces of mostly contemporary Canadian Inuit art, but also historic First Nations art, most of it from the 19th century, ancient Alaskan art and artefacts up to 2000 years old and Greenland works.”
Historic and contemporary works
Canadian highlights includes a 1959 print from renowned Canadian artist Kenojuak Ashevek titled “Rabbit Eating Seaweed.”
“Not only artistically, but historically, this is a very important work and we’re quite proud to have that as the centrepiece of the print collection in our auction this time around,” Hessel said.
Highlights from elsewhere in the North include small carved spirit figures from Greenland known as tupilaks and carvings from the Bering Sea region of Alaska.
Write to Eilís Quinn at eilis.quinn(at)cbc.ca
Related stories from around the North:
Canada: Canadian Heritage minute spotlights Inuit artist, Radio Canada International
Finland: London gallery offers multimedia Sámi art, Yle News
Greenland: Canadian artist explores Greenland’s past, Eye on the Arctic
Russia: Karelian art on show in Russia, Yle News
Sweden: Swedish Sámi visual artist shaping climate changes, Radio Sweden
United States: Feature Interview – Alaskan artist Nicholas Galanin, Eye on the Arctic
