Charlie Klengenberg Avakana

Waddington's Auction House Biography and Notes

Pederson, with the Hudson Bay Company and government administration in the Canadian Arctic for 25 years built a collection of over 200 works. He championed Charlie Avakana's carving and wrote of the first time he became aware of Charlie's talent. "So I was sitting in there one day, working on a piece of caribou antler, making a crib board. Charlie came in and looked over my shoulder and said "What the hell are you making there?" and I said , "I'm making a crib board. Pretty good, don't you think?" He said, "I think it's lousy", So Red told Charlie to give it a try and do better. "By that evening he'd started an elaborate carving of a caribou antler - done on relief, which I had never, ever seen done before. And the few I've seen since are out and out take-offs. Charlie dreamed up that concept entirely on his own. I knew from the start that here was, truly, an incredible talent, and Charlie was born with it."