Anthropo-zoomorphic mask (gorilla) · Gabon, West Masango Region, Punu-Ashira · ID: 3053278
Weyhe Gallery / Erhard Weyhe, New York, USA
John J. Klejman, New York, USA
Frank Herreman, Antwerp, Belgium
Karl Stirner, Easton, Pennsylvania, USA
Description
wood, pigments, old collection label from Himmelheber “65” and other handwritten labels
For a comparable example, see AHDRC 0046003.
Hans Himmelheber recorded that, during his travels through Fang territory, he encountered only three relatively recent and roughly carved masks in some fifty villages. Local informants told him that, around fifteen years earlier, missionaries had systematically destroyed numerous masks and sculptures. In Spanish Guinea, too, he found only a small number of older masks, chiefly in remote areas.
This mask type represents the gorilla, an animal associated with danger, cunning and the untamed forces of nature. Its stylised features reflect ritual visions and cosmological beliefs. The carver was therefore required to be both a “gaa-beete”, an initiate of the cult, and an accomplished artist, capable of imparting to the mask both its appropriate form and its spiritual potency. It was thus perceived not merely as the representation of an animal, but as a powerful spirit being.
Publications
African Negro Art, The Weyhe Gallery, New York 1940, ill. 25
Exhibition
Weyhe Gallery, African Negro Art, New York 1940