1. Masking Traditions in Africa

2. British Marines displaying their loot after the sack of Benin, 1897

3. Pablo Picasso,
Les Demoiselles d’Avignon
Oil on canvas, 1907

4. Edouard Manet, "The Luncheon on the Grass“, oil on canvas, 1862/1863

5. Pablo Picasso,
Les Demoiselles d’Avignon
Oil on canvas, 1907

6. Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselle D’Avignon
(detail) 1907, oil on canvas
Mbuya (sickness) mask,
Pende, Zaire, Polychrome wood,
20th century

7. Fang Mask,
Gabon, polychrome wood,
20th century
Pablo Picasso,
Detail of Les Demoiselle
D’Avignon, 1907,
Oil on canvas
Mask,
Republic of the Congo,
Painted wood
Late 19th century

8. “the mask weren’t just like any pieces of sculpture…Not in the least,
they were magic things…these Negroes were intercessors, …
They were against everything, against unknown threatening spirits…
I kept on staring at the fetishes. Then it came to me. I too was against
everything… I too felt that everything was unknown, hostile…”
--Pablo Picasso
“The African masks opened a new horizon to me.
They made it possible for me to make contact with
Instinctive things, which inhibited feeling that went
against the false (Western) tradition which I hated”
--Georges Braque

9. The mask is the mediating force at that delicate intersection
between the real and the imagined; the concrete and the imperceptible;
The serious and the playful; the whimsical and the terrifying; the living and the dead
Ancestral veneration/worship; mediation
Rites of passage—education
Social control—punitive; intervention; social harmony
Entertainment—humor and satire.

10. Ancestral Veneration

11. Figure with Mask like Head,
Rock Painting, Tassili, 10,000 BP

12. Mask Head
Yoruba (Ife) Nigeria
12th-15th century ( BP)
Copper, 33 x 19 cm (13 in)

13. Oba William Ayeni,
Orangun of Ila wearing the
Great Crown (Ade Nla) with beaded
Veil,
Yoruba Peoples, Nigeria
20th cent

14. Chiwara Masquerades in performance during the agricultural cycle,
Bamana Peoples, Mali

15. Crest Mask,
Chiwara,
Bamana, Mali
Wood,
20th century

16. Bobo (Butterfly) mask,
Burkina Faso (Upper Volta),
Painted Wood, cloth,
20th century
Members of the Do in performance
Dossi, Burkina Faso (Upper Volta)
Wood, natural pigments, grass fibers
20th century

17. Dje (antelope) masquerade in performance, Dabuzra, Cote D’Ivoire

18. Elephant masks in performance, Cameroon, cotton, beads, animal skin, feathers,
1985

19. Maiden spirit maskers
Igbo Peoples, Nigeria
20th cent.

20. Ijele Mask at the 2nd Burial
Ceremony,
Achalla, Nigeria,
Mixed media, 20th century

21. Education, Initiation and other Rites of Passage

22. Sowei Headdress,
Gola/Vai Peoples,
Liberia and Sierra Leone,
Wood, 20th century

23. Sowei Headdress,
Sande society, (Gola, Vai Peoples)
Liberia Sierra Leone
Wood, pigment
20th century

24. Boys’ initiation, Gabon

25. Children’s masquerade
Yoruba Peoples
Ibadan, Nigeria
21st century

26. Fire spitter mask (kponugu), Senufo, Ivory Coast
Wood, 20th century

27. Gelede Headdress with two pythons attempting to swallow a tortoise
Yoruba, Nigeria, wood, pigment, 20th century

28. Punishment and Warfare
Social Control:
Punishment and Warfare

29. Mask used in executing criminals,
Yoruba Peoples, Nigeria
19th/20th cent

30. Yoruba Egungun Masquerade, mixed media, 21st century

31. Entertainment, Humor and Satire:
Parodying “Otherness” & Antisocial Behavior

32. Egungun masquerade costume,
Yoruba Peoples, Nigeria
Cloth, metal, wood
20th cent

33. Egungun ensemble
Yoruba Peoples, Nigeria
Cloth, wood, metal
20th cent.

34. Egungun masquerade in
Dance motion
Yoruba Peoples, Nigeria/Benin,
20th cent.

35. Gelede masked performers, Yoruba Peoples, Ketu, Democratic republic of Benin

36. Masquerades, Yoruba, Nigeria, wood, cotton, 20th century

37. Critique of restrained sexual desires conceptualized in the image of a monkey,
Egungun, Yoruba, Nigeria
Wood, cloth
20th century

38. A parody of a prostitute who prowls
Around looking for victims,
while stroking her teeth,
Egungun, Yoruba, Nigeria
Painted wood, cloth
20th century

39. Parody of the town fool
Egungun, Yoruba , Nigeria
Painted wood, cloth
20th century

40. Parodying the Colonial “Other”
(Egungun) Masquerade
Yoruba, Nigeria
wood, animal hide, cotton, pigments
20th century

41. Parodying the Police
Igbo Masquerade
Nigeria,
20th century

42. Egungun in Acrobatic Display
Yoruba Peoples,
Ibadan, Nigeria
21st century

43. Yoruba Egungun Masquerade, mixed media, 21st century

44. Nick Cave American, b Soundsuit, 2006 Found knit sweaters, socks, drift wood, dryer lint, and paint   Helen M. Danforth Acquisition Fund