Offering the Finest Quality Sub-Saharan African Art

 

Superb African Tanzania Sukuma Figure

 

Inches:                    Height: 11.25 Inches
Centimeters:          Height: 29.5 Centimeters
                                Measurements Figure Only
Material:                Wood, Beads Eyes
Estimated Age:      Early 20th Century
Condition:              Good
Remarks:                Highly stylized figure simplified form rudimentary extremities dark patina

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Documentation of Authenticity / Any Available Provenance Will Be Included With This Piece.

CONDITION
Wood deterioration, chips and scrapes, long large age cracks, overall condition good. Thank you and please view my other items.

BACKGROUND
The Sukuma people are a comparatively large tribe and number approximately one million. They live in small villages in the northern part of Tanzania, each of which is headed by a chief who is also a sorcerer and whose power is counterbalanced by secret societies. Sukuma carvers are associated with large, rough-looking, standing figures, which have a weathered patina. In some instances these statues were made either with articulated limbs or were carved without any arms and legs at all. The later figures may have been used as scarecrows and the figures carved with articulated limbs, known as Amaleba, are used by musicians and dancers during ceremonies in the dry season, following the harvest. Another type of tall, carved figure, to which fetish material is attached, is thought to represent an ancestor. Sukuma masks have a fearful expression, exaggerated features and like their statues, have a weathered patina. In common with the Amabela, Sukuma masks were also employed during dance ceremonies in the dry season.

   


Painter Fred Uhlman words - Most of the artists I admired, Picasso, Modigliani, Deraini, to mention only a few, had collected African art and had been profoundly influenced by it. Shortly afterwards I bought the Baule Fetish and the Baule bobbin which are still two of the finest pieces in my collection. It is easy to see why I bought them and why from that moment I have never stopped collecting. The head of the bobbin or heddle - pulley which is after all only a functional object for the purpose of weaving seemed to me then and today as beautiful as a Greek goddess. The fetish moved me as deeply as the bobbin by its silent tragic dignity and its air of profound meditation.
 
 

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