East Greenland, Mask, before 1930, wood and pigment, 10 x 6 x 2.25 in, 25.5 x 15.1 x 6 cm. Provenance: Collected by A.Y. Jackson in Greenland; by descent to Naomi Jackson Groves. ... In 1930 A.Y Jackson and his Group of Seven colleague Lawren Harris travelled up the Labrador coast and around Baffin Island and Greenland on the Canadian government supply vessel Beothic. Jackson collected this mask on that trip. Jackson gave the mask to his niece, the artist and art historian Naomi Jackson Groves. The mask was sold as part of her estate by Walker’s in 2001. ... The East Greenlandic mask-making tradition dates from the 1880s until about 1930, the latter date corresponding to the Christianization of this region. The masks were made sometimes of sealskin but usually of wood. They represented either human or spirit faces (but never animals), and were danced either in shamanic rituals or in theatrical performances that imitated them. As with this fine example, the masks were grotesque in form; facial features were distorted and sometimes multiplied. For more information, see Bodil Kaalund, The Art of Greenland: Sculpture, Crafts, Painting (Univ. of California Press 1979) pp. 54-67.--- CATEGORIES: Inuit, Eskimo