Ancestral Guardian

The is a male ancestor figure carved from a single piece of wood. The Fang preserved ancestral skulls and bones in cylindrical containers with wooden... more

by Everett Spruill

Title

Ancestral Guardian

Artist

Everett Spruill

Medium

Mixed Media - Serigraph

Description

The is a male ancestor figure carved from a single piece of wood. The Fang preserved ancestral skulls and bones in cylindrical containers with wooden figures bound to the lids, with the feet dangling over the edge, symbolically evoking the ancestor and guarding the relics. Such figures may invoke Fang ideas about the connection between death and rebirth in their combination of infantile forms—such as a high, bulging forehead and shortened limbs—with more mature characteristics. The Fang abandoned their local religious beliefs on a large scale in the early twentieth century, when most of their reliquary figures entered Western collections. Paul Guillaume, was a Parisian art dealer who sold African works to the famed modern artist Pablo Picasso, among others, until his death in 1934. Guillaume was among the first to link African works with European modernism, establishing Paris as a center of trade in African art. The Brooklyn Museum purchased several of these works in 1951. This is an original serigraph on paper.

Uploaded

February 24th, 2017