Tingmissartoq

index of sculptures 1988 to 2024

Tingmissartoq

2013
Bas-relief in salvaged wood #97, 110 x 105 x 15cm.
Collection Verre Bergen, Rotterdam, Netherlands.



Tingmissartoq

In 1931 an Inuit boy in Gothaab, Greenland was confronted with a Lockheed Sirius Model 8 airplane, a monoplane outfitted with floats so it could land almost anywhere. He named it Tingmissartoq, ‘one who flies like a big bird’. The plane was piloted by Charles Lindbergh and his wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh.
It was only 4 years since Lindbergh had become famous for flying the Spirit of St. Louis non-stop from New York to Paris, but in the meantime aviation had made huge progress. It was now clear that the future lay in large scale passenger aviation, although political and industrial powers would have to be brought on board. Factories and airfields were needed and the maps of the world had to be redrawn to show flyable air routes and not only information for water and land navigation. In 1931 and 1933 Lindbergh and his wife took it upon themselves to connect the dots in two world tours, meeting the wealthy and powerful wherever they went and spreading the gospel.
(source: wikipedia.org/wiki/Tingmissartoq


Image 1 : The Tingmissartoq Name.
Photo by Eric Long, Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution
(source: pioneersofflight.si.edu)
Image 2 : Route map created by Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh after their flight.
(source: timeandnavigation.si.edu)
Image 3 : The Lindberghs take of for Geneva after a visit to Rotterdam Waalhaven [1933]
(source: Kees van Dongen Waalhavenverzameling)





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