Inuk artist Ashevak’s ‘The Enchanted Owl’ fetches record price at auction

A rare and striking blue trial proof of Inuk artist Kenojuak Ashevak’s The Enchanted Owl shattered auction records on Dec. 2, selling for an unprecedented $366,000 to a Canadian collector — the highest price ever for one of her works.

“The Enchanted Owl is the iconic image that transcends the boundaries of Inuit art and is a classic piece of Canadian art,” said Mark London, one of the founders of First Arts, which promotes and markets Canadian Indigenous art.

The proof was consigned to First Arts by American collectors John and Joyce Price, whose extensive holdings of Inuit and First Nations art has been gradually released to the market. The blue trial proof had been in their collection since 1996.

Trial proofs are a common part of the printmaking process, which is a collaborative effort between the artist who creates the original work of art and the printmaker who translates it into a print, London said.

Acclaimed Kinngait artist Kenojuak Ashevak was named to the Order of Canada in 2012. She died in 2013 at the age of 85. (File photo)

The blue owl was a trial proof created during the experimental process to determine the best colour scheme for the final edition.

Trial proofs are typically destroyed along with the printing plate. That makes this surviving blue trial proof “incredibly rare” and “one of a kind,” London said.

Titled “Artist’s Proof II,” this trial proof is distinct from the edition of 50 stonecut prints of Ashevak’s The Enchanted Owl that were officially released as part of the second Cape Dorset print collection in 1960.

That edition featured two colour variations: 25 prints in red and black, and 25 in green and black.

A description on the First Arts website says this proof — which was likely printed by the Kinngait-based stonecut printmaker Eegyvudluk Pootoogook — “features the classic blue hue that defined the early prints of Kinngait.”

The sale of the blue trial proof broke a recent auction record for The Enchanted Owl. A red tail version of the work was sold by Heffel Fine Art Auction House in Toronto on Nov. 20 for $289,250.

The “beautiful” blue colour of this trial proof contributed to its higher valuation, London said, as the piece was originally estimated to be worth $200,000 to $300,000.

Bidding started at $160,000 before climbing to its record-breaking final price of $366,000, in a YouTube livestream of the sale.

Nunatsiaq News contacted First Arts to ask the identity of the purchaser, but the person’s name remains undisclosed.

London said he is “happy to say that it was sold to a Canadian collection and will be staying in Canada, as opposed to the loss of a cultural property to American collectors.”

Ashevak, who died in 2013 at the age of 85, was an Inuk artist from Baffin Island who created carvings, drawings and graphic works inspired by her Arctic environment.

One of the most celebrated Inuit artists, she was a Companion of the Order of Canada and recipient of the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Art.

Her earliest artwork was The Enchanted Owl in 1960, which gained widespread recognition and was featured on a Canadian postage stamp in 1970.