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Female Figure

Photo: Paul Macapia

Female Figure

19th - 20th century

Montol

Nigerian

"The Montol figure does more than stand. With arms akimbo, she challenges the world. In the ballet of African iconography, head erect, lips back, feet flat upon the ground, she performs on her own terms the first position." (Robert Farris Thompson, 1999)

Askew at every turn, this figure is a lesson in subtle distortions of the human form: legs spread so wide they hardly connect to the torso, her arms bend one way and are answered by legs bending the other direction. Without visual alignment, one's eyes try to reset her disjointed body or interpret her vitality. Wooden figures among the Montol were thought to be associated with troupes that provided divination, herbal remedies, curing rites and performances.
Wood
12 5/8 x 5 x 4 1/2 in. (32 x 12.7 x 11.4 cm)
Gift of Katherine White and the Boeing Company
81.17.541
Photo: Paul Macapia
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., pp. XII, XV, reproduced pl. 3 (as standing female).

Seattle, 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., pp. 24, 61, reproduced pl. 1 (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.

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