Funeral Head mask (Kponungo)

Senufo horizontal masks are armed with confrontational features: baboon-like creatures with tiny eyes, enlarged teeth and distorted faces, disheveled costumes and restless behavior. These masked mediators often appear at the death of an important person, guarding the living and encouraging the deceased to return to an ancestral village.

Wood, polychrome

9 7/8 x 17 7/16 x 9 7/16 in. (25.1 x 44.3 x 24 cm)

Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection

51.13

Provenance: Mathias Komor, New York; to SAM 1951; Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection

Not currently on view

Resources

Exhibition HistoryCleveland, Ohio, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Senufo Unbound: Dynamics of Art and Identity in West Africa, 22 February - 31 May 2015, St Louis Art Museum, 28 June - 27 September 2015, Musee Fabre, Montpellier, France, 28 November 2015 - 6 March 2016. Text by Susan Elizabeth Gagliardi. Catalog no. 62, p. 96 (color).

Published ReferencesHandbook, Seattle Art Museum: Selected Works from the Permanent Collections. Seattle, WA: Seattle Art Museum, 1951, p. 7 (b&w)

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.

Learn more about Equity at SAM