Skip Ribbon Commands
Skip to main content
Seattle Art Museum (SAM)
menu

Male figure

Male figure

Palm ribs are pegged together to create each of these figures. Pigments delineate the wide open eyes of the man and the demure downcast eyes of the woman. As guardians of shrine materials, such pairs had a short lifespan out in the elements-they were suspended from the platform of a shrine and kept in motion by a passing breeze.
Pith, pigment
7 3/4 x 6 1/4 x 2 1/4 in. (19.7 x 15.9 x 5.7 cm)
Gift of Katherine White and the Boeing Company
81.17.714.2
location
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). Text by Robert Farris Thompson. No cat. no., p. 57, reproduced pl. 68 (as standing figure).

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.

Learn more about Equity at SAM