Osuitok Ipeelee’s iconic sculptures are beloved around the globe. This piece takes a look at Ipeelee’s work and examines what makes his sculptures so dynamic. From depicting the delicate fingers and golden crown of Queen Elizabeth II to balancing the postures of leaping caribou, Ipeelee was a master of capturing moments of stunning beauty.
Since the middle of the last century, the hamlet of Kinngait (Cape Dorset), NU, has maintained a well-deserved reputation as one of this country’s leading centres of printmaking and graphic arts. However, no less exceptional are many of the superb stone sculptures that have come from this region. One of the greatest sculptors to ever emerge from Kinngait is Osuitok Ipeelee, RCA (1922–2005), an artist who mastered the art of carving like no other.
Ipeelee was born in the late autumn of 1922 in the Neeouleeutalik camp, not far from where the hamlet of Kinngait is today. His family lived a nomadic lifestyle, moving between various camps throughout Sikusilaq, “the place where the water doesn’t freeze in winter.”
Ipeelee had a happy childhood, playing games and observing the world around him with a keen eye. He was particularly intrigued by his father, Ohotok’s, ability to carve cribbage boards and little kayak models out of ivory tusks, which he would then sell to the sailors when the annual supply ships arrived. Ohotok taught his impressionable son the fundamentals of carving, and before long Ipeelee was making little toy boats, qamutiks, animals and figures from wood salvaged from shipping crates or driftwood.
Osuitok Ipeelee Muskox (c. mid 1970s) Stone 31.1 × 35.6 × 19.1 cm COURTESY FIRST ARTS PHOTO DIETER HESSEL
In 1935 when his father died, Ipeelee, only 13 at the time and the eldest son, assumed the role of family provider. He did well, but when the price of furs declined, he took up his father’s secondary vocation and began to hone his skills as a carver of walrus tusks. Using only rudimentary tools that he often fashioned himself from nails and broken saw blades, Ipeelee created highly detailed carvings. One such piece was a miniature fox trap with working parts so carefully assembled it would likely be quite functional and effective if a fox happened to be the size of a bumblebee.
Ipeelee’s reputation as a talented carver spread across the region. In 1951 when Alma and James Houston, OC, were travelling along the coast of South Baffin to encourage and promote the making of fine arts and crafts, they were told that the best artist around was a man named Osuitok.
Ipeelee was impressed by the Houstons’ dedication and commitment to what he recognized could be a great opportunity not only for him but for the entire community. Their mutual admiration and respect helped forge a collaboration that was instrumental in establishing the groundwork for one of the most successful printmaking studios in the country and the beginning of one of the most astonishing art movements in the world. As Inuit art expanded, Ipeelee’s fame increased exponentially. Major galleries around the country were mounting exhibitions of this exciting new art movement and Ipeelee was often singled out for his exquisite and compelling stone sculptures.
Osuitok Ipeelee Polar Bear with Captured Seal (1984) Stone 36.2 × 43.2 × 26.7 cm COURTESY FIRST ARTS PHOTO DIETER HESSEL
In 1959 he was commissioned to create a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II on the occasion of her royal tour to Canada. This sculpture was one of his personal favourites. The full-length gown carved from green Markham Bay serpentinite gives the illusion of silk when it is contrasted with the creamy white whalebone used for the head, bust and hands. She is holding an orb in one hand with a copper ring on her fourth finger and an ornate shiny copper crown mounted on her head. The artist would have been familiar with the visage of the queen. In fact he was seeing more and more of her features passing through his hands on the currency he received from the sales of his sculptures. So it is all the more remarkable that he didn’t do the obvious by aiming for a likeness of Her Majesty but instead chose to depict her as a symbol of regal dignity, power, authority and great wealth. This is a figure of a universal regent.
Ipeelee often spoke of the real. To make something look real involved more than replicating the surface appearances of a subject. It was to express an ideal. He achieved this quality in his sculptures by carving areas of animals or human figures deliberately disproportionate to emphasize the parts that give the subject energy, vitality, meaning and emotion. A simple carving of a bear tiptoeing across the ice with its head held high and a fearsome-looking disposition successfully incorporates the stealth, ferocious and graceful characteristics of a “real” bear.
As a hunter, Ipeelee had a practical knowledge of the land, and over time he developed and expanded an acute sensory awareness that actuated a superb memory. Like many other artists of his generation who were brought up on the land, Ipeelee imbued his early work with a spiritual presence. All of these qualities, attributes and abilities, combined with his innate aesthetic sensitivity and his skill at carving in stone, contributed to his success as a great artist.
Osuitok Ipeelee at work, 1996 REPRODUCED WITH PERMISSION DORSET FINE ARTS
For Ipeelee, the quest for the real would begin in the most unreal place of all—the mind. His sculptures all began as fully developed ideas. The nascent conceptions of a composition would take shape in his imagination often at night during the period of languorous bliss just before sleep when the body is fully relaxed and inhibitions and subconscious resistance subside. Over the next few days, he would refine these initial thoughts into crystal clear visualizations and then he would idealize each step that would be required to fulfill its execution. The next step would be to find the perfect stone.[1]
When it was practical, Ipeelee would hunt for stone himself at the source. He would tap, bang, bash and drench potential rocks until he found one that was the right size, density, mass and colour for the sculpture he had in mind.
For the sculpture of the illusive Sea Goddess (1983), the artist chose a seaweed green, semi-transparent stone that he liked because it has a glasslike quality when polished. The softened and slightly distorted features on the face and the rhythm of the flowing braids and wavy shapes along the breadth of Sedna’s body all suggest a sculpture that is being viewed under water.
Osuitok Ipeelee Kneeling Mother with Child in her Amaut (1983) Stone 64.8 × 40.6 × 25.4 cm PRIVATE COLLECTION PHOTO ART GALLERY OF ONTARIO
Similarly, in his 1983 carving, Kneeling Mother with Child in her Amaut, the decorative lines roughly incised on the amauti add realism to the sculpture but the contrasting tones also help to define the volumes and enhance the values. The mother and the baby in the amaut are so totally convincing we feel that we are in the presence of living and breathing individuals we might have met at some time in the distant past.
Balance was another element that preoccupied Ipeelee and set him apart from so many others. He said, “To me, that’s the most important part—the most important thing in carving—the balance. You have to really know how it’s going to work; if you don’t you are going to end up with a problem.”[2]
In his 1972 piece Spirits, Ipeelee solved that problem with éclat. This carving has not only a physical balance to maintain stability but a visual equilibrium between various animal spirits merging and coalescing in a cosmic dance of form and dissolution.
Ipeelee once said, “When you’re looking at a real bird and they don’t know you are looking at them, sometimes they do the weirdest things with themselves.”[3] One such example, a sculpture of a Hawk on one Leg (1968), precariously balanced on a bone base the size of a jar stopper seems to completely defy gravity. Viewing this sculpture brings about the same exhilarating unease one feels while watching an acrobat or a high-wire circus act. It should be impossible. But Ipeelee enjoyed doing the impossible.
Osuitok Ipeelee Hawk on one Leg (1968) Stone and bone 48.3 × 38.1 × 6.4 cm COURTESY OF WADDINGTON'S AUCTIONEERS AND APPRAISERS, TORONTO
More than any other artist, Ipeelee knew how to confidently push serpentinite stone to its ultimate limits. Possibly the greatest example of this skillfully daring bravado is a piece that very few people have ever seen. It is a large beautiful carving of a standing caribou on ultra-thin legs and elongated body suckling a calf of similar proportions. The West Baffin Eskimo Cooperative (WBEC) bought it without hesitation, but it was considered so delicate that no one dared to pack it for shipping down to the Toronto office. One employee even suggested they should strategically pre-break the sculpture so that the four or five separate pieces could be reassembled by a master restorer when it reached its destination. By default it became part of the WBEC permanent collection and remains locked in a cupboard, out of sight but safe.
On the opposite extreme is a carving of an Owl Transformation (1982) that is so simple it is almost Minimalist. It is a carving about boundaries. The most interesting things happen at boundaries—the boundaries of land and sea, mountain and valley, earth and sky. This carving includes the boundaries of solid and indistinct and the physical and spiritual while the subject is simultaneously hanging on and letting go at the boundary point precisely halfway between man and owl.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. The great iconic photographs of our times, like Marilyn Monroe standing over the subway grate, the Challenger space shuttle disaster or the tank man in Tiananmen Square, all record a precise instant in time that can never be repeated, when our emotional response is heightened or that rare moment when anything is possible.
Ipeelee often obtains that same instance of suspended excitement in his sculptures. Many of them are snapshots frozen in stone. The triumphant Fisherwoman (1963) suddenly rises from a kneeling position with her kakivak and fish held aloft and is perfectly balanced by her other outstretched hand. The top half of the body is expansive in size and expression, leading to a billowing hood that serves to frame a face that is caught in that instant just as amazement becomes exultation.
Osuitok Ipeelee Walking Caribou (c. 1987–88) Stone and antler 60.3 × 54 × 16.5 cm COURTESY FIRST ARTS PHOTO DIETER HESSEL ALL REPRODUCED WITH PERMISSION DORSET FINE ARTS ALL © THE ARTIST
The same is true of a Leaping Caribou (1976) frozen in time just before liftoff. Caribou can run up to 80 kilometres an hour. A healthy caribou can jump over six feet high if it needs to. This elegant, strong and beautifully shaped tuktu is at the height of its prime. With its neck arched and limbs coiled and ready to spring forward, this sculpture represents the highest potential of both the caribou and the artist. To accomplish these sculptures, Ipeelee put his full self into the work. He could not abide any distractions or trivial interruptions, otherwise the whole carving could be lost.
Ipeelee’s sculptures, which encompass an extraordinary range of diverse works, are represented in all of the major museums and galleries in Canada as well as in several prominent institutions overseas and in the homes of eminent collectors around the world. Along with his many caribou, standing, walking, running, rearing, scratching and resting, there is an entire arctic menagerie, dramatic encounters between men and walrus and bears and seals, beautiful women carved with tenderness and devotion, marble pillars of exquisite simplicity and refinement, legends and transformations and quirky oddities such as a driftwood spirit and an amauti transforming into a harpoon head.
Osuitok Ipeelee Resting Caribou (c. 1988–89) Stone and antler 21 × 27.3 × 5.1 cm COURTESY FIRST ARTS PHOTO DIETER HESSEL
In his later years when his motor skills began to decline, Ipeelee sculpted his caribou in resting positions, but he continued to carve until the end. His final carvings were like stone sketches, perhaps resembling the simplicity of the wooden toys he carved 70 years earlier.
Ipeelee received many accolades and awards in his lifetime. The words gentle, kind, stoic, graceful, dignified, strong and courageous have been used to describe him. Terry Ryan, OC former general manager of Kinngait Studios and a man who was well acquainted with the art scene, once asserted that Osuitok Ipeelee was the best sculptor not just in the Eastern Arctic but in the whole country. And Jimmy Manning, long-time studio manager at the WBEC, said, “It was very hard for anyone to copy him.”
There are many people who are qualified and would be willing to offer a succinct summary of Osuitok’s life, but I think the last word should come from the artist himself, who said with earnest intention when he was a young man: “I’m going to stand on my own two feet and I’m going to try and have the best life as I can and I’m going to be happy with my life.”
John Westren is the manager of Dorset Fine Arts, the Toronto marketing office of Kinngait Studios. He has worked for the studios on behalf of Kinngait artists for over 35 years. Westren has also written a number of essays about Inuit art for various publications and anthologies including Cape Dorset: A Print Retrospective, Tuvaq and Annie e le Altre.
This Feature was originally published as “A Quest for the Real” in the Winter 2021 issue of the Inuit Art Quarterly.
NOTES
1 Sharon Van Raalte, “Interview with Osuitok.” Interview by Sharon Van Raalte, trans. Maata, (May 1985): 33, 49.
2 Jean Blodgett, “Osuitok Ipeelee.” Inuit Art: An Anthology, trans. Letia Parr, Jimmy Manning, (Winnipeg, 1989): 50.
3 Sharon Van Raalte, “Interview with Osuitok.” Interview by Sharon Van Raalte, trans. Maata, (May 1985): 45.