Performers pay homage to female refinement in kpelie masquerades. Glistening black, crisply carved surfaces depict an idealized female face with features that include scarification marks and two protruding locks of hair. The character, which wore bright scarves and cloths and danced with swirling energy, was expected to honor the life and family of a deceased elder at a funeral.
Wood and pigment
10 13/16 x 4 15/16 x 3 7/16 in. (23 x 12.6 x 8.8 cm)
Gift of Katherine White and the Boeing Company
81.17.259
Provenance: Collection of Karl-Heinz Krieg (1934-2012), Neuenkirchen, Germany; sold to Katherine White (1929-1980), Seattle, Washington, 1979; bequeathed to Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, 1981
Now on view at the
Seattle Art Museum
Resources
Exhibition HistoryLos Angeles, California, Frederick S. Wight Art Gallery, University of California, African Art in Motion: Icon and Act, Jan. 20 - Mar. 17, 1974 (Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, May 5 - Sept. 22, 1974). Not in catalogue.
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.
