Rare 1959 Cape Dorset print collection fails to meet auction price

“Shaman” by Karoo Ashevak (1940-1974) sold for $28,000 at auction earlier this month. (HANDOUT PHOTO)

The “Story of the Big Giant Inukpuk” by Davidialuk Alasua Amittu (1910-1976) sold for $20,400 at auction earlier this month. (HANDOUT PHOTO)

A collection of Inuit prints from 1959 worth up to $450,000, which was touted as “one of the most nationally important movements in the history of Canadian art,” failed to sell at auction earlier this month.

“The 1959 Cape Dorset print folio failed to meet its minimum [price] and did not sell. We are in the process of looking into alternatives for our client,” Duncan McLean, president of Waddington’s Auction House, told Nunatsiaq News.

Waddington’s was to auction off “perhaps the only complete set in existence” of the 1959 Cape Dorset print collection at the Toronto auction house on May 6.

The year 1959 marked the first year in which Inuit in Cape Dorset produced prints.

Artists included in the 1959 collection, which is filled with iconic images, include Kenojuak Ashevak, Tudlik, Osuitok Ipeelee, Kellypalik Mangitak, Niviaxie, Kananginak Pootoogook and Josephie Pootoogook, Lukta Qiatsuk, Kunu and Iyola Kingwatsiak.

As for why the print collection failed to sell, Duncan attributes that not so much to a slump in interest in Inuit art overall — “there’s just not many people who are going to have half a million dollars to spend and also have room to hang over 30 prints,” Duncan said.

As well, museums, which could be the perfect home for such a collection, have very little money these days, he added.

“Hopefully we’ll find a home for them soon,” he said.

The prints were part of a larger spring Inuit art auction May 4 and May 5.

Other works that sold well included “Shaman” by Karoo Ashevak (1940-1974), which sold for for $28,000, and the “Story of the Big Giant Inukpuk” by Davidialuk Alasua Amittu (1910-1976), which sold for $20,400.