The Hunters

Description

‘The Hunters’ by PARR – Inuit Art – Cape Dorset 1962 print collection by Dorset Fine Arts, presented by DaVic Gallery of Native Canadian Arts.

Condition:          Very Good condition – Beautiful natural paper aging, “inclusion / patina” that it is best left as is than to clean by professional restoration.   Also, faint and mildly visible 15” horizontal paper crease half-way on the paper.

Description by Artist:     No description by artist found.

Notes from DaVic Gallery:    PARR’s works compare much with Luke Anguhadluq’s works on the rawness and direct first hand representation of a nomadic life of the Inuit.   It is interesting to notice this collection of PARR images they all invoke from PARR’s memories as a hunter himself where all situations involve male hunters and animals.

In this print we see PARR’s vision of first-hand experience, as hunter himself, of three hunter catching the various and most preferred catches that included caribou, seal, and walrus.  They are accompanied and assisted by their faithful companions, the dogs.  Caribou was important for the fur that provided for great meat and the best winter protection for parkas as well as bones and antlers for tools; seals provided for great mean and skin for kamiks, boots; walrus provided for blubber for lamps and meat for dogs.

This is also a very interesting and perhaps unique case that two years later an image based on the same drawing was printed in different paper format titled “Another Time”.  This later print was archived and released with the Cape Dorset 1999 print collection # 23.   While “The Hunters” was cut and printed by Iyola Kingwatsiak, “Another Time” was by Lukta Qiatsuq.  Both master printmakers and it is only side by side that the detailed technical differences can be detected from angle and position to details of some of the images.  More markedly is the stone scratching technique where while Iyola’s print is closely faithful to the original drawing with gentle stone scratches, Lukta’s are more energetic.

Reference picture # 8 for size comparison with letter size paper.