SPOTLIGHT African Art in Canadian Collections A Little-Known Story By Jacques Germain, in collaboration with Yves Prescott As an heir to French and British cultural traditions, Canada has shown interest in the art of Africa, but that interest has never resulted in any focused concentrations of objects on a national or even on a provincial level. The great size of the country and its decentralized organization have not proven beneficial for efforts to unite resources or expertise in the field. Furthermore, unlike many European nations, this Commonwealth state never had a direct colonial presence in Africa. Despite these realities, the level of interest in African material culture in Canada is a phenomenon that is worthy of mention. That the Maple Leaf State has both private and museum collections that hold African artworks of noteworthy merit is largely thanks to the enthusiasm and generosity of a few enlightened collectors. HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS In order to understand the nature of this unique trajectory, it is important to look at the nineteenth century, a time when, in the West, African artifacts were largely to be found in university museums and in scientific institutions, the successors of European curiosity cabinets. The didactic approach typical of this kind of collection, in which natural science and anthropology were combined, remained the norm until the twentieth century. The very varied works that these institutions and their archives housed—some of which turned out to have great value from both historic and aesthetic perspectives—formed the foundation of a patrimony that unfortunately was accessible only to members of elite academic circles and those close to them. The most emblematic collection of this period—and the most representative one as well—was undoubtedly the 509 objects from the former Belgian Congo and Gambia collected by Dr. John Lancelot Todd (1876–1949), which he only cursorily documented before donating them to McGill University’s Redpath Museum in Montreal at the beginning of the twentieth century.1 Born in British Columbia but a resident of Montreal, Todd (fig.1) was a recognized specialist in tropical diseases and accepted an invitation from King Leopold II of Belgium to conduct intensive in situ research on sleeping sickness, which was considered a serious impediment to the economic exploitation of tropical areas during colonial times. Beginning in 1903, he took part in a two-year expedition sponsored by the Liverpool School of Medicine, where he had finished his education. Although his medical notes and journals ended up in the Wellcome Collection in London, where they remain today, the examples of material culture he collected, mainly weapons and sculptures from the peoples he had encountered during previous visits to the Belgian Congo and Gambia, went to Canada, specifically to McGill University, where Todd had begun his medical studies and where he later had taught. These include old FIG. 1: Dr. J. L. Todd, 1931. McCord Museum, II-299705.0. Courtesy of the McCord Museum, Montreal. FIG. 2 (left): Figure, nkisi. Kongo, northwestern Angola. C. 1860. Wood, metal, leather, shell, pigment. H: 54.5 cm. Collection of the Redpath Museum, McGill University. © Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal. FIG. 3 (near right): Figure, nkondi. Kongo, Lower Zaire River, DR Congo. 19th century. Wood, pigment, metal, ritual materials. H: 59 cm. Collection of the Redpath Museum, McGill University. © Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal. FIG. 4 (far right): Figure, nkisi. Songye, Eastern Kasai, DR Congo. 19th century. Wood, metal, bone, fiber. H: 58.8 cm. Collection of the Redpath Museum, McGill University. © Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal.
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