Figurative Weight (abrammuo): Birds

This weight, depicting a mass of birds on a tree, suggests the proverb "The woodpeckers hope the silk-cotton tree will die," meaning if the tree dies, grubs will fill the rotting wood and give the woodpeckers more food; one man's downfall is another man's gain.

Copper alloy

2 3/4 x 7/8 x 7/8 in. (7 x 2.2 x 2.2 cm)

Gift of Katherine White and the Boeing Company

81.17.362

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 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., p. 82, reproduced pl. 46.

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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