Inukjuak (Port Harrison), Young Boy Inflating an Avataq, ca. 1962-64, black stone, signed in syllabics and with disc no., 11.25 x 5.5 x 4.5 in,28.6 x 14 x 11.4 cm. Provenance: private collection, Montreal. ... Johnny Inukpuk became one of the first truly famous Inuit artists in the 1950s (see Darlene Wight, Early Masters, WAG, 2006, pp. 82-87). His fame and reputation continued into the 1960s with works such as his widely published Mother Feeding Child of 1962 in the TD Bank Collection (see Swinton 1972/92, figs. 18 and 55), arguably his greatest masterpiece. ... Given our knowledge that Inukpuk frequently used his wife as a model, probably for that work and certainly for many subsequent ones, it is interesting to speculate if the young child in that work and the young boy in this one are one and the same, namely Inukpuk’s young son. Probably so. This cherub of a boy, with his tousled hair, is one of Inukpuk’s most endearing and beautifully rendered works, carved during the relatively short period when Johnny Inukpuk was at the very height of his creative powers.--- CATEGORIES: Inuit, Eskimo