The ability to masterfully handle local material and an acute awareness of and respect for the surrounding environment permeate these early pieces and continue to inform modern masterworks of sculpture, print, drawing and textile. Cribbage boards made from walrus ivory were also popular. These “trade sculptures,” whose purpose was no longer strictly functional but, rather, aesthetic and recreational, often took the form of small representations of local fauna. During the late 1800s and early 1900s, Inuit carvers began to create pieces to trade with whalers who were sailing into the North. Objects such as cutlery, bowls, lamps, combs, needles and harpoon heads were created most often out of soapstone (steatite) and ivory, and some were decorated with elaborate patterns and imagery. Today’s robust international trade in Inuit art finds its origins in exquisitely designed utilitarian objects. Unique conditions - an unforgiving climate, rapid social and environmental change, and an exceptionally concentrated artistic milieu - have kindled the work of artists who continue to stoke a growing market with their innovative treatment of subject matter and form. For over seven decades, Inuit artists have been giving form to their ways of knowing and being in an art unlike that created anywhere else in the world.
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