An Introduction to Inuit Sculpture

Sculptures are a delight to eyes and contentment of an artist's soul, not for today or yesterday but for ages. This is evident from the ancient forms of arts, one of which is Inuit art which has now become popular as contemporary sculpture. It represents the artwork of Inuit- the people inhabiting northernmost North America from northern Alaska to eastern Canada and Greenland and who are often referred to as Eskimos. They originally preferred ivory for Inuit sculptures. However, with the growing popularity of Inuit art, mostly in the southern states, they started to make stone sculptures and gradually the sculptures were created out of various materials including soapstone, serpentine, antler, bone etc.

Materials for Inuit Sculpture
The materials that are found on the land or obtained from the sea along the coasts are used as raw materials by the Inuit artisans. No wood sculpture is found in this artform as there are no trees in the Arctic tundra region. Whatever is found in good amount becomes the medium of Inuit art. As such, stone is the most common material used by an Inuit artist followed by animal bone and ivory.

• Antler: The solid and usually branched horns of animals belonging to deer family, caribou, moose etc. are carved when dry and are often used for carvings and finishing pieces like tools, tusks etc.


• Ivory: the hard white cream or off white colored dentine, composing the main part of the tusks of the elephant, walrus, etc. are one of the favorite materials for Inuit sculptures.


• Serpentine: The hard stone in different colors ranging from green to brown and black is yet another pet choice.


• Soapstone: A softer stone with a 'soapy' feeling in a variety of colors is also popular for Inuit carving.


• Whale bone: Very old ranging back to hundred years old whale bone is carved only when it is wholly dried.

Stone being the favorite material for Inuit sculptures is, in no way, available easily to these sculptors. Quarries or sites having good quality stone are not always located near established Inuit communities. As such, the Inuit artists often have to travel to the quarries by boat or snowmobile during summers or winters respectively and sometimes for several days together. They have to work hard to get the stone out of the land which has to be extracted with tools like picks and drills. Once enough quality stone is extracted, they have to transport the supply back to their communities place.

Variations in Inuit Sculptures
Inuit sculptures may appear similar but they are different, made with variations by different Inuit art producing communities. Animal and human figurines are the most common features of this art with some communities making more animal sculptures while others doing more human figures. Also the surface of the sculptures differ from community to community. Some have highly polished finishes whereas others are rough and unpolished. Some artists bring life to their sculptures with minutest details and others make them more crude having primitive looks. Inuit sculpture range from conservative to bold and even wildly outrageous sculptures.

Inuit sculptures have become so popular, mostly for interior decor purposes that their fakes are being made with the use of molds wherein the finished pieces are forms of plastic, resin or ceramic. These fakes are harder to distinguish from authentic artwork. They are often hand carved reproductions of an original piece of artwork reproduced in hundreds of copies without the artisan’s permission and often having Inuit syllabics on the bottom of the fake Inuit sculptures. However, Many people are buying and collecting Inuit art as investments in spite of actual Inuit artists actually on decline.