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Verandah post (Opo)

Label Text"The gesture of balancing-which is talking about moving with confidence with an object balanced on your head-is again one of the accomplished gestures of traditional African sculpture. Sylvia Boone, my late and great colleague, once wrote that pride resides in having a load rest heavily on the head with an insouciant countenance that reveals no sign of pressure, no sign of strain while walking smoothly with the arms swinging free: that nonchalance which is the essence of cool." (Robert Farris Thompson, 2002)

Object number81.17.624

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. 102-3, reproduced pl. 140 (as fragment of a housepost). Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Art from Africa: Long Steps Never Broke a Back, Feb. 7 - May 19, 2002. [Exhibition traveled to Philadelphia Museum of Art, Wadsworth Atheneum, Cincinnati Art Museum, and Frist Center for Visual Arts, but object not included.] Text by Pamela McClusky. No cat. no., pp. 58-59, reproduced pl. 35 (as Housepost (opo)).

Credit LineGift of Katherine White and the Boeing Company

Dimensions22 1/4 x 4 x 5 3/4 in. (56.5 x 10.2 x 14.6 cm)

MediumWood