#kivetoruk moses

[pazzesco]

James Kivetoruk Moses - Inupiat/Inupiak, (1900-1982) - untitled, depicting a woman and a man standing in front of their home.

James Kivetoruk Moses - untitled, depicting a bowhunter, his seal prey, and a confronting polar bear .

James Kivetoruk Moses - untitled, depicting a seal hunter casting his hook.

James Kivetoruk Moses - untitled, depicting a hunter with his catch working his way across ice flows.

James Kivetoruk Moses - untitled, depicting a hunter in his kayak bringing in a seal.

James Kivetoruk Moses - untitled, depicting a man coaxing a harnessed reindeer.

"Mr & Mrs Napasuk Big Chief East Cape Siberia", depicting a woman and a man posing in front of their camp.

When strong gusts flipped a small plane landing near Teller, on the Seward Peninsula on August 14, 1953, one 50-year-old Inupiaq Eskimo hunter, trapper, and reindeer herder injuring his leg lost all means of support. “No more work, no more hunting,” he said about the event that caused a career change. “Is only way…drawing pictures.” Recovering, James Kivetoruk Moses resumed a teenage habit now leavened by anecdotes, legends, and knowledge accrued over five decades during which the land had taught and sustained him.

At heart, he remained a herder. And modest. Asked about his pictures’ appeal, he admitted lacking refinement. “Young people try to be artists,” he said. “They come up good artists, very good drawing because they were school. But no experience. Don’t know nothing [about] living.”

Untitled, depicting a shaman treating a sick man

In 1975, weakened by strokes and surgeries, Moses, with his wife, Bessie, resided in Nome, a non-Native commercial hub since Yankee-whaler days. Their cabin, abutting the Golden Goose saloon, sat a stone’s throw from black, foam-flecked Bering Strait beaches. Bessie, first acting as his bookkeeper, peddled a briefcase of Moses’ nostalgia at local hotels. She kept a percentage of the profits for herself, she once joked. For an extra five dollars she provided a handwritten summary of the subjects, of routines, beliefs, and a past beyond her clienteles’ ken.

Untitled, pen and ink wash on card stock

Accompanying this drawing is one of those five dollar handwritten summaries by the artist's wife Bessie, dated August 12, 1975:

"This pretty girl is from N. East Siberia. Her uncle and her folks were well to do family and they came across to our mainland from there every spring after spring to trade more than one skin or whole lot of them come same time all the way to Katzebue. They brought reindeer skins black and spotted skins, wolverines and wolfs skins to trade with all kinds of furs. This girl came with her mother because the father had to take care of their business. She was helpful and good to the people and everybody learn to love her every place. They want to help them on account of her wanting to marry. But since they were traveling the mother + father wouldn't leave her behind being the only girl. Hope the true happening is a good story. So long + good-by By Bessie Moses"

Postcard - James Kivetoruk Moses - "Eskimo Men & Woman" - Anchorage Museum

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