Vintage 1970\'s Canadian Eskimo Inuit Art Enamel on Copper Musk Ox Mid Century For Sale

This is a beautiful vintage mid century piece of enamel on copper art. It depicts a umingmakor musk ox. It was made in 1978 and was part of the boom ofnorthern Canadian native art being sold in southern galleries. It is a masterful depiction of the musk oxrendered entirely in enamel. The textured, bubble-like, pointillism on the animal\'s body is a deliberate technique achieved during firing. It beautifully mimics the shaggy, dense undercoat (qiviut) of a real muskox. The result is a fantastic unmistakeable Inuit interpretationof the musk ox. The background gold colored enamel is what truly elevates the piece. In the typical \'waste not want not\' style of the Inuk peoples this piece is backed with a painted piece of roughcut fiberboard, likely taken from an off cut of one of the new permanenthouses being built for the Inuit people by the Government of Canada at the time. It uses a piece of hand-tanned caribou leather affixed with a brasstack as a hanger. While the piece is signed in roman characters it has eluded our ability to decipher it. Thisis most likely due to the fact that most Inuk names are unpronounceable by non native speakers. It became so much of a problem for the Bureau of Indian Management that for decades they were issued governmentID numbers that would be used for official purposes instead of theiractual names since there was no standardised way to write them that didn\'tmangle or distort the actual pronunciation of them. In 1978 while they were encouraging the Inuk people to adopt roman writing It would be about another ten years before there was a working universal phonetic adaptation meaning this signature was likely an individual guessing the best they could to recreate their actual name in roman characters. And unfortunately, like a lot of the early northern art co-ops, a lot of people made a small number of pieces and never carried on so they don\'t appear in the known artist databases. Whatever the case this is a spectacular piece that is just fun to look at and live with. It still retains the original price tag and sale date December of 1978 and $15.50 (About $80 today) There are a few stress cracks runningacross the surface of the piece probably caused by someone holding the piece by the edge of the copper plate. Personally I find thelines add interest to the piece. There is a tiny bit of loss to the enamel in the lower righthand side (shown in the photos) and while it\'s hardly noticeable next to that magnificentmusk ox it is priced to reflect that. It measures 7.5\" long by 6.6\" high. It stands about 3/4\" off the wall. I have well over 2 decades of packing experience and can guarantee that I will pack this piece to ensure that it survives its journey to you. I will also pay for the shipping and the tariff so you don\'thave to suffer any additional charges.