Nigeria, late 19th c - early 20th c

Wood and metal
75 cm

Provenance:
Ulrich von Schroeder, Zürich (1975)
Hélène (1927-2023) & Philippe (1931-2019) Leloup, Paris (according to Berns, 2011)
Toby and Barry Hecht Collection, Bethesda, Maryland (until 2025)
Michael Woerner, Würzburg / Bangkok, Thailand

Published:
Arts d'Afrique Noire, n°16, 1975, p.47 (ill., adv. Ulrich von Schroeder)
Roy Sieber & Barry Hecht, Eastern Nigerian Art from the Toby and Barry Hecht Collection, in African Arts, Vol. XXXV, no.1, Spring 2002, p.58 (ill.)
Marla C. Berns, Richard Fardon, Sidney Littlefield Kasfir (ed.), Central Nigeria Unmasked: Arts of the Benue River Valley, Fowler Museum at UCLA, Los Angeles, 2011, p.276, ill.8.57

Exhibited:
Central Nigeria Unmasked: Arts of the Benue River Valley [travelling exhibition], Fowler Museum at UCLA, Los Angeles, 13 February - 24 July 2011; National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 14 September 2011 - 12 February 2012; Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 16 May - 2 September 2012; Musee du quai Branly, Paris, 12 November 2012 - 27 January 2013

During his 1965 field study in the villages of Gwana and Pindiga, in the northeastern region of Jukun country, Arnold Rubin documented several anthropomorphic figures of the same type as the sculpture presented here. He described their style as the Jukun “nuclear style,” referring to what he considered the core of classical Jukun statuary from the northeast. This style is distinguished by its powerful stylization of the human body, whose purely geometric representation is reduced to a harmonious arrangement of concave and convex volumes. According to information obtained by Rubin, most of these figures were commemorative representations of royal ancestors.