MARION TUU'LUQ, R.C.A. (1910-2002) QAMANI'TUAQ (BAKER LAKE)
Fishing Camp, 1973
coloured pencil on paper, 20 x 25.75 in (50.8 x 65.4 cm)
signed and inscribed with disc number, "ᑐᓗ E248".

Provenance
Upstairs Gallery, Winnipeg, MB;
Acquired from the above by the Private Collection, Winnipeg, MB, in 1976.

Exhibited
Winnipeg, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Tuu'luq / Anguhadluq: An Exhibition of Works by Marion Tuu'luq and Luke Anguhadluq of Baker Lake, 10 September - 7 November 1976, cat. 9.

Published
Jean Blodgett, Tuu'luq / Anguhadluq: An Exhibition of Works by Marion Tuu'luq and Luke Anguhadluq of Baker Lake, (Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 1976), cat. 9, reproduced, unpaginated, as "On loan from Sanavik Cooperative".

A skilled seamstress, she began sewing works on cloth by the mid 1960s, soon after her arrival in Qamani’tuaq (Baker Lake). She only took up drawing seriously in 1972 at the encouragement of Jack and Sheila Butler, but she was never prolific in the medium, finding it more difficult than sewing. In Fishing Camp, in four registers, and in chronological order, Tuu’luq presents four elements of summer fishing: at the bottom, an enormous trout or char dominates the lower section of the sheet. Above, we encounter a quartet of men standing with kakivat (pronged spears) at a stone weir. The river that runs to the weir is replete with swimming fish. Above the men, we encounter a row of four kneeling women (all with babies in their amautiit) cleaning fish with ulus, seemingly in perfect unison with one another. Atop the women, we see four skin tents and rows of fish drying on lines. A multitude of perspectives and scenes is customary in the graphics created by the first generation of Qamani’tuaq artists, but Tuu’luq’s use of these devices creates an image that drives the viewer from any specific time or place while immersing us in her unique vision of times past.

References: For Marion Tuu’luq’s own discussion of her memories, specifically fishing, see Crafts from Arctic Canada, exh. cat., (Ottawa: Canadian Eskimo Arts Council, 1974), unpaginated. For additional drawings by the artist, see Marion E. Jackson and Judith M. Nasby, Contemporary Inuit Drawings, (Guelph: Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, 1987), cats. 29-30; Marion Jackson et. al., Qamanittuaq: Where the River Widens: Drawings by Baker Lake Artists, (Guelph: Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, 1994), cats. 16-19. For a comprehensive overview of drawings in Baker Lake, see: Marion E. Jackson, Baker Lake Inuit Drawings: A Study in the Evolution of Artistic Self-Consciousness, University of Michigan, PhD Dissertation, 1985.