Two Nigerian mask attributions.I would like to comment on two photographs that appeared in Christraud Geary's article, "The Incidental Photographer: Roy Sieber and His African Images," in part two of the memorial to Roy Sieber (African Arts African arts Visual, performing, and literary arts of sub-Saharan Africa. What gives art in Africa its special character is the generally small scale of most of its traditional societies, in which one finds a bewildering variety of styles. , Summer 2003). It's true that the Ogrinye head (Fig. 21, p. 76) resides in Otobi (if it hasn't been stolen since T last saw it in 1989), but Otobi is in Akpa district of central Idomaland, not Igala. Roy Sieber was told it was by Ochai, yet it bears no resemblance to any other work I documented by this artist when I lived in Otobi, twenty years TWENTY YEARS. The lapse of twenty years raises a presumption of certain facts, and after such a time, the party against whom the presumption has been raised, will be required to prove a negative to establish his rights. 2. after Sieber's visit. What it does resemble is a Boki mask in the British Museum British Museum, the national repository in London for treasures in science and art. Located in the Bloomsbury section of the city, it has departments of antiquities, prints and drawings, coins and medals, and ethnography. . The major clans of Akpa district came originally from the Ogoja region adjacent to Boki country. The Idoma Adagba mask (Fig. 27, p. 81) is by an artist called Oklenyi of Akungaga village, whose work I documented in 1978 shortly before he died. There is also a mask and a seated figure by him in the Rockefeller collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Met's mask has been borrowed by National Museum of African Art The National Museum of African Art is a museum that is part of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.. Located on the National Mall, the museum specializes in African art and culture. and appears in David Binkley's show "Playful Performers." Sidney L. Kasfir Department of Art History Faculty Curator of African Art Michael C. Carlos Museum The Michael C. Carlos Museum is administered by Emory University on its campus in DeKalb County near Atlanta, Georgia. The Carlos Museum has the largest collections in the Southeast United States of objects from ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, the Near East, and the ancient Emory University Atlanta, Georgia |
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