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.
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.
