Mask for an Epa festival with a superstructure depicting a balogun (war general)

1920-40

Nigerian

Yoruba

Ekiti

"Riding is an ennobled, or a spectacularized, or an italicized, form of being seated. But it's a form of being seated that is extremely aggressive in its connotation. As one informant told me years ago, you see a man on horse and you think 'War!'" (Robert Farris Thompson, 2002)

Possibly erinmodo (African oil nut tree) and pigment

48 13/16 in. (124 cm)

Diameter: 17 13/16 in.

Gift of Katherine White and the Boeing Company

81.17.579

Provenance: [Galerie Concorde, Los Angeles, California]; purchased from gallery by Katherine White (1929-1980), Seattle, Washington, 1972; bequeathed to Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, 1981

Photo: Scott Leen

Not currently on view

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. 78-79, reproduced pl. 106 (as "epa" 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. 38, pp. 84-85, reproduced (as Mask (Epa)).

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. 42-43, reproduced pl. 18.

New Haven, Connecticut, Yale University Art Gallery, Bámigbóyè: A Master Sculptor of the Yorùbá Tradition, Sept. 9, 2022 - Jan. 8, 2023. Text by James Green, et al. No cat. no., p. 69, reproduced fig. 38.

Published ReferencesMcClusky, Pamela. "Art of Africa." In Selected Works, pp. 35-52. Seattle: Seattle Art Museum, 1991; p. 49, reproduced.

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