**Originally Listed At $400**

Lucy Tasseor Tutsweetok (First Nations / Canadian, Eskimo Point / Arviat, 1934-2012, disc # E1-135). "Faces" stone carving, 1992. Signed in syllabics on underside of base. Attached "Eskimo Art" tag lists artist, culture, year, and title. A remarkable stone carving by artist Lucy Tasseor Tutsweetok titled "Faces" featuring 4 stylized faces that exemplify her classic, semi-abstract style. The piece is representative of her preferred subject matter - human faces and forms that evoke the Inuit sense of family - as well as her appreciation for organic forms that often resemble "miniature mountains." In formal terms the sculpture is supremely elegant: the workmanship and finish are lovely, and the interplay of the figures/faces and the stone matrix is subtle and sensuous. Tutsweetok's minimalist approach is "tied to 'imagin[ing]' the shape' inherent to her material rather than 'copying' a form." Natural black and white inclusions add variation to the smooth surface of the deep gray stone. Size: 2.2" L x 6.5" W x 6.4" H (5.6 cm x 16.5 cm x 16.3 cm)

Lucy Tasseor Tutsweetok likened sculptural creation to that of musical, once describing in an interview with Ingo Hessel in 1989, "One time a group of singers came to the community. My daughter was watching me as I was carving. She asked me if carving a sculpture was the same as singing. I replied, 'Yes, it is.'"

According to the National Gallery of Canada, who has collected 7 of her pieces, "Lucy Tasseor Tutsweetok?s sculptures are best known for their distinctively minimal construction. A defining presence in Northern art, she helped develop a more abstract and elemental school of sculptural expression.

As the daughter of the Eskimo Point carver Rachel Ottuk, Tasseor Tutsweetok was exposed to sculpture at an early age. She began using an axe as her tool of choice, as the local stone, steatite, was harder than traditional native carving tools could handle. Working alongside artists Andy Miki, John Panaruk, and Elizabeth Nutaluk, Tasseor Tutsweetok helped establish the highly distinctive abstract expressionistic sculpting technique characterized by directness in style and unique to the native art community. Her works deal mainly with domestic subjects, familial groups represented by clusters of faces that come through the natural shape of the rock. Sometimes Tasseor Tutsweetok used incised lines to add motifs to the surface of her sculptures.

Sculptures such as the National Gallery of Canada?s Inuit, Itqiliit, Unaliit amma Qablunaat (1991), which was featured in the Museum of Civilization's 'Indigens' exhibition in 1991, achieve her goal to create monumental work. Tasseor Tutsweetok taught her daughter to carve, as she only trusted family to continue carving in her unique style, reflecting the relationship between the Inuit and their land."

Provenance: private Lac du Bonnet, Manitoba, Canada collection

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#182124

Signed in syllabics on underside of base. Attached "Eskimo Art" tag lists artist, culture, year, and title. Intact and excellent with smooth surfaces.