Matthew Tiulana Inupiaq Walrus Ivory and Baleen "Double Head Hawk Mask"

Native American, Alaska, Inupiaq, King Island. A carved walrus ivory and baleen mask by Matthew Tiulana (Inupiaq, King Island), titled "Double Head Hawk Mask." Two hawk heads are set side by side at the center, each with a round eye and a hooked black beak. The double raptor head gives the piece its title. A hawk with outstretched wings rises at the top, and a second spread-winged bird is set at the bottom. Eight feather-shaped ivory panels, each incised with chevrons, radiate around a black baleen hoop hung with looped baleen rings. They recall the feather and quill appendages of Bering Strait spirit masks. The mask is mounted on a slender post over a turned ivory base. Signed Matthew Tiulana and titled on the reverse. King Island carvers made masks like this one as small sculptures of the animal spirits in Inupiaq cosmology, not as regalia to be worn. About the artist: Matthew Tiulana, an Inupiaq ivory carver of King Island heritage, was born September 2, 1952, in Nome, Alaska. He belongs to a lineage of accomplished King Island artists: his father, Paul Tiulana, instilled in him and his brothers, Justin and Tom, both the technical craft of carving and a lasting commitment to Inupiaq cultural continuity. That inheritance took on new weight after King Island's year-round population dispersed to Nome and neighboring communities through the 1960s and 1970s. Though the island itself was left behind, its people carried their customs, subsistence practices, and artistic traditions with them, and King Islanders remain distinguished today for the quality of their ivory work. Tiulana's carvings center on spirit masks, small in scale but dense with meaning, worked from walrus ivory, fossilized ivory, baleen, and whalebone gathered through the same subsistence hunting that has always sustained King Island families. Many of his masks rest on a base ringed with baleen, and each is conceived as an individual study, no two repeating the same features or expression. His subjects draw on the shamanistic worldview of the King Islanders, in which humans, animals, and the natural world exist in continuous relation: wind and other elemental forces take form alongside seal, walrus, and other animal spirits central to island life. The work demands patience as much as skill, each piece built slowly toward its particular character. Tiulana continues to live in Nome, where he carves alongside fellow King Islanders at the King Island Carving Center, sustaining a tradition that has followed his community from the island to the mainland without losing its roots. A Certificate of Authenticity will accompany all winning bids. Item # 204936

Estimate:$300

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