Video Story
Maxine Anguk Discusses Mother Eating
Aniksak, Margaret Uyauperq
Kivalliq
(1905–1993)
Aniksak, Margaret Uyauperq
(1905–1993)
Margaret Uyauperq Aniksak (1905-1993) was born inland from Arviat. She and her family moved into Arviat in the 1950s. Like Salluit in the 1950s, Arviat had a high proportion of female stone carvers. She began carving the local steatite stone in 1966, with the arrival and encouragement of arts and crafts officer, Dennis Webster. Like many Arviat carvers, she favoured maternal and family themes. Her depictions of mothers and children are among the most poignant, infused as they are not only with strong maternal feelings but also with powerful memories of hunger and hardship. The primal, “stripped down” Arviat sculptural style is well suited to this subject matter. She has explained:
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… I see myself in the carvings, having poor clothing.
Mother Eating
1969
stone
27.4 x 12 x 22.5 cm
Collection of the Winnipeg Art Gallery, Twomey Collection, with appreciation to the Province of Manitoba and Government of Canada
1193.71
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About
The Jerry Twomey Collection of Inuit Sculpture
The Jerry Twomey Collection of Inuit Sculpture
In 1971, the monumental Jerry Twomey Collection of 4,000 Inuit carvings was acquired by the WAG. Twomey was a geneticist and a co-founder of Winnipeg’s T&T Seeds. Beginning in 1952 and throughout the 1950s and 1960s, he collected sculpture from virtually every art-producing Inuit community. He was fascinated by the distribution of artistic talent within families and across generations and collected the work of individual artists in depth.
In 1969, Twomey decided to retire from the seed business and move to California to breed roses full-time. The disposition of his collection became a matter for intense negotiation with a number of museums and collectors. George Swinton persuaded then Premier Edward Schreyer of the collection’s importance and in August 1971 Schreyer quickly signed an Order-in-Council to raise $185,000, or two-thirds of the funds required to purchase the collection for the WAG. In June 1972, James Richardson, then federal minister of supply and services, presented a cheque for the remaining $75,000 at a ceremony at the Gallery. To celebrate both the opening of the new Gallery building on Memorial Boulevard and the acquisition of the Twomey Collection, a small show was installed in 1972. In 2003, a comprehensive WAG exhibition and catalogue revealed the incomparable record of the development of Inuit art in the 1950s and 1960s provided by the Twomey Collection.
