I really like carving women with children on their backs, I like the shape of that image. I remember how hard it was for women to live in the past. I feel pity for them, for all the hard work they had. I see them as myself, how poor I was…

— Artist interviewed by Ingo Hessel, 1989

Uyauperq began carving by 1965 at the latest, and, while she was physically able, strove for naturalistic detail and a sense of gesture and movement. Of the works referenced below, this quite early carving most closely resembles the artist's Mother with Two Children in the WAG collection. Despite its overall simplified form, this sculpture is moving and poignant; the mother's crouch allows her baby to sleep in an almost horizontal position.

References: For important examples of Uyauperq's work see George Swinton, Sculpture of the Inuit (Toronto, M&S, 1972/92) fig. 120; Ingo Hessel, Inuit Art: An Introduction (D&M, 1998), fig. 52; Gerald McMaster ed., Inuit Modern (AGO, 2010), p. 86; Ingo Hessel, Arctic Spirit (Douglas & McIntyre/Heard Museum, 2006), cat. 150.

Lot 113