Arviat artists generally work with the natural shape of pieces of hard steatite stone available locally. They keep detail to a minimum and rarely pierce the stone to create negative space. The abstracted creations of John Pangnark have typified this aesthetic since his early recognition in 1970. In that year he was invited to demonstrate stone carving at Expo ’70 in Osaka, Japan, and his work was featured with that of graphic artist Jessie Oonark in a touring exhibition organized by the National Museum of Man in Ottawa.

Pangnark’s carvings usually interpret single human figures. He began carving in the mid-1960s and this early Seated Figure still has clear anatomical references and polished surfaces, as well as the more abstract formal qualities of his later pieces.

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.

NFB and Geronimo Inutiq, Riders