While vividly realistic, the actual character each Makonde mask portrays cannot be known without documentation of its performance. This mask is likely to have been worn by senior men, whose interpretation would involve fast whirling motions, rising dust and loud drums that would stop abruptly to interject a sudden stillness. With the masked face only nodding slightly, the face with a frozen expression begins to reveal it is one to fear, since it does not relax from an unsmiling presence.
Wood, human hair
9 x 6 7/8 x 6 1/8 in. (22.8 x 17.5 x 15.5 cm)
Gift of Katherine White and the Boeing Company
81.17.1220
Provenance: [Gallery K, Los Angeles, California]; purchased from gallery by Katherine White (1929-1980), Seattle, Washington, 1979; bequeathed to Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, 1981
Now on view at the
Seattle Art Museum
Resources
Published ReferencesBurt, Eugene C., East African Art in the Collection of the Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA: Seattle Art Museum, 1985, no. 1, p. 8
McClusky, Pamela, Repeat, Repeat, A Community of Collectors. Seattle, WA: Seattle Art Museum, 2008, p.132, illus. fig.1.
Seattle Art Museum respectfully acknowledges that we are on Indigenous land, the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. We honor our ongoing connection to these communities past, present, and future.
