Mask (Sowei)

20th century

Sierra Leone

Mende

Slit eyes on Sowei masks are the sign of a chaste woman whose eyes are like a ritual screen to narrow her vision for romantic privacy. Black in the Mende language means "wet" and coats these masks as a reminder that their teachers were water dwelling spirits who reside in deep dark pools of the forest. Wearing entirely black clothes, Sowei defy male voyeurism and the gaze of anyone outside their tight community.

Wood and raffia

32 in. (81.3 cm)

Gift of Mark Groudine and Cynthia Putnam

98.57

Photo: Paul Macapia

Now on view at the Seattle Art Museum

Resources

Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Art from Africa: Long Steps Never Broke a Back, Feb. 7 - May 19, 2002 (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Oct. 2, 2004 - Jan. 2, 2005; Hartford, Connecticut, Wadsworth Atheneum, Feb. 12 - June 19, 2005; Cincinnati, Ohio, Cincinnati Art Museum, Oct. 8, 2005 - Jan. 1, 2006; Nashville, Tennessee, Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Jan. 27 - Apr. 30, 2006 [as African Art, African Voices: Long Steps Never Broke a Back]). Text by Pamela McClusky. No cat. no., pp. 203-5, 207, reproduced pl. 88.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Disguise: Masks and Global African Art, June 18 - Sept. 7, 2015 (Los Angeles, California, Fowler Museum at UCLA, Oct. 18, 2015 - Mar. 13, 2016; Brooklyn, New York, Brooklyn Museum, Apr. 29 - Sept. 18, 2016).

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Lessons from the Institute of Empathy, Mar. 31, 2018 - ongoing.

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.

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