Three-faced helmet mask

late 19th century

Ejagham

Akparabong area

Nigerian

Cameroonian

Wood, animal skin, and pigment

15 7/8 x 13 1/2 x 10 5/8 in. (40.4 x 34.3 x 27 cm)

Gift of Katherine White and the Boeing Company

81.17.506

Provenance: Acquired by Katherine White (1929-1980), Seattle, Washington, 1968 (location unknown); bequeathed to Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, 1981

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., pp. 175-7, reproduced pl. 213 (as helmet mask).

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Praise Poems: The Katherine White Collection, July 29 - Sept. 29, 1984 (Washington, D.C., National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Oct. 31, 1984 - Feb. 25, 1985; Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art, Apr. 6 - May 19, 1985; Fort Worth, Texas, Kimbell Art Museum, Sept. 7 - Nov. 25, 1985; Kansas City, Missouri, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Mar. 8 - Apr. 20, 1986). Text by Pamela McClusky. Cat. no. 49, pp. 106-9, reproduced.

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