Skip to main content
Collections Menu
SAM'S collection
Male figure
Male figure

Male figure

Label TextPalm 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.
Object number81.17.714.2
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).
Credit LineGift of Katherine White and the Boeing Company
Dimensions7 3/4 x 6 1/4 x 2 1/4 in. (19.7 x 15.9 x 5.7 cm)
MediumPith, pigment
Female figure
Cameroonian
Object number: 81.17.714.1
Photo: Elizabeth Mann
Melanesian
20th century
Object number: 68.148
Figure (Tadep)
Cameroonian
Object number: 81.17.712
Single-faced Crest mask
Nigerian/Cameroonian
Object number: 81.17.508
Photo: Paul Macapia
Cameroonian
19th century
Object number: 81.17.718
Photo: Elizabeth Mann
Tanzanian
20th century
Object number: 2012.29.21
Male figure
Object number: 81.17.236
Male figure
Object number: 81.17.615
Male figure
Object number: 81.17.717
Photo: Paul Macapia
Nigerian/Cameroonian
Object number: 81.17.507
Photo: Paul Macapia
Cameroonian
20th century
Object number: 81.17.720