#51 • James Kivetoruk Moses Seal Butchering Village Scene

Part of June 2025 Premier Auction (live auction by Alaska Premier Auctions & Appraisals)

High bid $3,700.00

Status: Sold

Category: Art

A gorgeous original artwork by James Kivetoruk Moses (Inupiaq, 1903-1982) depicting a woman and her child as they prepare the bounty of a seal hunt in the all-important tasks of skinning and cleaning a seal, while also preserving the meat for their future meals by placing it on drying racks. The fidelity of their surrounding environment is captured perfectly in this ink and watercolor work. Museum curators and cognoscenti praise the artist's paintings for transcending the power of the photograph in documenting the past of historic, rapidly vanishing old Alaska Native life into our present. Moses lovingly presented a world that, in many ways, he deeply longed for after his debilitating injuries from a 1953 airplane crash that effectively ended his life as a subsistence hunter. Signed by the artist lower left, this superb work has been matted and framed, measuring approximately 16" x 20" overall, with a 9.5" x 13.5" sight view.