MUSEUM NEWS 52 African Master Carvers CLEVELAND—African Master Carvers: Known and Famous, at the Cleveland Museum of Art until July 16, 2017, addresses the false assumption that African artists who created tradition-based art were anonymous. Through fi fteen stellar examples from different cultural regions in West, Central, and Southern Africa, the exhibition explores the lives and works of a select group of master carvers who enjoyed recognition and sometimes even fame during their lifetimes. Also included are the artists’ biographies and, when available, their portrait photographs. Traditional African arts in collections and museum exhibitions in Europe and the United States are generally ascribed to an unknown or unidentifi ed artist or, more commonly, to a culture or people. Typically, few, if any, artists’ names are associated with an object. Of course this does not mean that the people who used the works did not know their makers’ identities. The alleged anonymity of these artists is largely the result of the limited interest on the part of mostly non-African collectors. This has much to do with the fact that when the works were fi rst acquired and exhibited, they were not considered to be art but instead were seen as exotic curiosities or, at best, crafts. African Master Carvers features four sculptures on loan from the Indianapolis Museum of Art and two privately owned masterpieces alongside nine works from the CMA collection. Because of the persisting Euro-American preference for three-dimensional objects in durable materials, the exhibition’s selection of objects focuses on male artists. The presumed anonymity of the makers of the works included in the exhibition can be fi rmly refuted. However, while some documentation has been gathered on the biographies and methods of a number of other sub-Saharan artists, our general knowledge remains quite superfi cial. Unfortunately, it will most likely be impossible to retrieve the names of most of the makers of the thousands of African artworks that appear in publications and collections around the world. RIGHT: Presumably by Sabariko Koné (died c. 1950). Mask, kodal, kodoli-yehe, or kpeliyehe. Senufo, Ouazomon village, Côte d’Ivoire. Possibly 1900–1950. Wood, pigment, metal tacks. H: 31.6 cm. The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund, inv. 1989.48. LEFT: Yacouba Bonde (born 1963), plank mask, nwantantey. Bwa, Boni village, Burkina Faso. C. 1980. Wood, pigment, fiber. H: 193 cm. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Sundry Art–Education Fund, inv. 2012.24. BELOW: Ateu Atsa (1840– 1910), male figure. Bangwa, chiefdom of Fontem, Cameroon. C. 1870–1910. Wood, pigment. H: 92.1 cm. The Cleveland Museum of Art, purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund, inv. 1987.62. LEFT: Bamgboye (1893– 1978), helmet mask, epa orangun (detail). Yoruba, Odo-Owa village, Ekiti region, Nigeria. Presumably c. 1920. Wood, pigment. H: 137.2 cm. The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund and gift of Mary Grant Price, inv. 1991.165.
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