Horizontal painting of Pigs and Pangolin
The colorful Sohrai style of painting relates to the Sohrai harvest festival, one of the Santal people’s primary festivals during which they celebrate the importance of cattle and other wildlife. As part of the celebrations, local artisans create murals on mud walls by dipping their fingertips in paint. Such murals and works on paper contain images welcoming the harvest and honoring both nature and livestock. This image is of a sow (female pig) and piglet, together with a pangolin.
Sohrai colored in ochre acrylic (earth colors with commercial binders) on paper
23 x 30 3/4 in. (58.4 x 78.1 cm)
Gift of Joseph E. Reid and Batya Friedman
2022.30.1
Provenance: The artist (Tribal Women Artists Cooperative, Hazaribagh, India); gifted and sold, via Bulu Iman (Founder, Tribal Women Artists Cooperative), to Joseph Reid (d. 2016), Winthrop, Washington, 2008; bequeathed to Batya Friedman, Seattle, Washington, 2016; to Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, 2022
Photo: Scott Leen
