Untitled (Family and Dog)

Description

Untitled (Family and Dog) by Luke Anguhadluq – Inuit Art – Baker Lake c. 1970 original drawing presented by DaVic Gallery of Native Canadian Arts.

Condition:          Overall very good condition with some paper handling marks caused by the artist.  Also, ghost images from drawing lines made by the artist when drawing on a paper over this paper (See pictures # 7 and 8) .  Graphite smudge above the image of the dog also caused by the artist while drawing this piece.  This intentionally left as-is to maintain the integrity and originality of the effort of the effort of the artist, including mistakes and oversights.

Description by Artist:     No description by artist found.

Notes from DaVic Gallery:    Luke would rotate the paper as he drew and this is the reason why often his images are presented in circular formation of the subjects.  In this case we can see Luke may have rotated the paper in two different ways, one vertical where he draws the family and the other horizontal to draw the dog.  Then, I can detect Luke kept on rotating the paper to draw the lines that fill the subjects as they are in different directions.  Seldom we see continuous lines, as one can detect interrupted lines where he lifts his pencil to then attempt to continue drawing on the same line, but interruptions can be seen.  I love that he makes not much effort to hide his mistakes and this can be seen in the left foot of the man where he attempted to draw a foot that could’ve cause to see one leg shorter than the other, but he corrected by simply extending the leg leaving the trace of the first attempt for the foot behind and not erasing it.  Perhaps he is less concerned with aesthetic details than telling a story.  Luke’s pencil strokes are firm and strong that can be felt and seen on the reverse side of the paper and on the drawing itself we can see the ghost images of the drawing done on the paper that may have been over this one (picture # 7 and 8).  Surely there might be another drawing where the ghost images created by this one may be seen too.

Luke paid attention to balance as the man and dog take the most space on the right side and Luke compensates by using color in the full body of the woman and this creates a sense of balance back into the composition.

I can see that the dog is on a leash, perhaps to keep it from further stealing fish, and it is from this that I sense a story where the family is coming back from fishing and their dog too advantage they were not paying attention to steal one of their fish.  The father rushes and puts the dog on a leash before it steals more of their fish.  As dogs were last to be fed scraps, people had be very vigilant of their food so dogs would not scavenge from their primary source.   I can imagine the rotated the page horizontal to draw the dog.

Finally, we see details on the humans with the man tallest, then the mother, then the son and finally the tiny baby’s head.  Somehow their expression is more of surprise than happy.  In this image, I think only the boy is closest in body proportions while the man and the woman show very thin and short small arms and hands compared to the rest of the body.   Also very interesting he paid attention to details when drawing the woman’s amauti and the dog eating the fish.  I wonder though why he frequently draws an extra line surrounding the man and the boy’s head, orange and yellow in this case.

For size comparison with letter size sheet, please reference picture # 5