Figurative Weight (abrammuo): Men Meeting

Two men lean back to greet each other in this weight that evokes the proverb, "They have ended up like Amoako and Adu." This proverb is an expression about wasted opportunities: Amoaku and Adu parted in their youth and meet again in old age to discover they are both as poor as when they started.

Copper alloy

1 3/8 x 1 1/16 x 13/16 in. (3.5 x 2.7 x 2.1 cm)

Gift of Katherine White and the Boeing Company

81.17.361

Provenance: [Julius Carlebach Gallery, New York]; purchased from gallery by Katherine White (1929-1980), Seattle, Washington, 1961; bequeathed to Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, 1981

Photo: Paul Macapia

Now on view at the Seattle Art Museum

Resources

Exhibition HistoryCleveland, Ohio, Cleveland Museum of Art, African Tribal Images: The Katherine White Reswick Collection, July 10 - Sept. 1, 1968 (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, University of Pennsylvania Museum, Oct. 10 - Dec. 1, 1968). Text by William Fagg. Cat. no. 105.

Los 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). Text by Robert Farris Thompson. No cat. no., pp. 20-21, reproduced pl. 22 (as goldweight).

Seattle, 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. 81-82, reproduced pl. 45.

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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