“Kongo: Power and Majesty” at the Met.

I already mentioned the show but this important exhibition really is a unique, once in a lifetime, opportunity to view many of the earliest surviving African textiles, drawn together from numerous  museum collections across Europe. A few years ago I went all the way to Ulm to see the cloth below (okay and a couple of others.) Don’t miss it !

Date: 16th–17th century, inventoried 1659

Geography: Democratic Republic of the Congo; Angola; Republic of the Congo Culture: Kongo peoples; Kongo Kingdom Medium: Raffia Dimensions: L. 75 9/16 in. (192 cm), H. 59 7/16 in (151 cm) [excluding 5 1/2 in (14 cm) perimeter fringe ] Classification: Textiles-Woven Credit Line: Kunst- und Wunderkammer des Christoph Weickmann, Ulmer Museum, Ulm, Germany

Note that this astonishingly fine cloth above is almost two metres square – looking at the photos it is too easy to visualize it as the small Kuba squares that we are so familiar with.

 

Luxury Cloth: Cushion Cover

Date: 17th–18th century, inventoried 1737. Geography: Democratic Republic of the Congo; Angola; Republic of the Congo Culture: Kongo peoples; Kongo Kingdom. Medium: Raffia Dimensions: 21 1/4 in. (54 cm) × 21 1/4 in. (54 cm)Classification: Textiles-Woven Credit Line: Nationalmuseet, Copenhagen

Prestige Cap (Mpu)

Date: 16th–17th century, inventoried 1674 Geography: Democratic Republic of the Congo; Angola; Republic of the Congo Culture: Kongo peoples; Kongo Kingdom Medium: Raffia or pineapple fiber Dimensions: H. 7 1/8 (18 cm), Diam. 5 7/8 in. (15 cm) Classification: Textiles-Non-Woven Credit Line: Nationalmuseet, Copenhagen

 

Prestige Cap (Mpu)

Date: 17th–18th century, inventoried 1876  Geography: Democratic Republic of the Congo; Republic of the Congo; Angola Culture: Kongo peoples Medium: Raffia or pineapple fiber Dimensions: H. 8 7/8 in. (22.5 cm), Diam. 6 1/4 in. (15.9 cm) Classification: Textiles-Non-Woven Credit Line: MIBACT-–Polo Museale del Lazio, Museo Preistorico Etnografico Luigi Pigorini, Rome

 

Garment (Nkutu)

Date: 19th century, inventoried 1853 Geography: Democratic Republic of the Congo; Angola; Republic of the Congo Culture: Kongo peoples Medium: Raffia. Dimensions: 31 1/8 × 49 1/4 in. (79 × 125 cm) Classification: Textiles-Costumes Credit Line: British Museum, London

 

 

“Kongo: Power and Majesty” at the Met Museum

Kongo

Power and Majesty

September 18, 2015–January 3, 2016

“Central Africa's Kongo civilization is responsible for one of the world's greatest artistic traditions. This international loan exhibition will explore the region's history and culture through 134 of the most inspired creations of Kongo masters from the sixteenth through the early twentieth century.

The earliest of these creations were diplomatic missives sent by Kongo sovereigns to their European counterparts during the Age of Exploration; they took the form of delicately carved ivories and finely woven raffia cloths embellished with abstract geometric patterns. Admired as marvels of human ingenuity, such Kongo works were preserved in princely EuropeanKunstkammer, or cabinets of curiosities, alongside other precious and exotic creations from across the globe.

Kongo luxury arts from the sixteenth through the eighteenth century—many of which have never been exhibited before—will give an unprecedented historical backdrop to the outstanding work produced by master sculptors active in the same region during the nineteenth century. The array of figurative representations they produced range from miniature ivory finials for the staffs of office of Kongo leaders to the carved-wood commemorative shrine figures positioned above their burial sites.

The presentation will culminate with a gathering of fifteen monumental Mangaaka power figures produced in the Chiloango River region during the second half of the nineteenth century; these will include the celebrated example acquired by the Met in 2008, the original catalyst for the exhibition. For the first time, this electrifying form of expression will be understood as a defensive measure conceived by Kongo leaders to deflect Western incursions into this region of Central Africa.

With works drawn from sixty institutional and private lenders across Europe and the United States, Kongo: Power and Majesty will relate the objects on view to specific historical developments and will challenge misconceptions of Africa's relationship with the West. In doing so, it will offer a radical, new understanding of Kongo art over the last five hundred years.”

This important exhibition will bring together an unprecedented number of the earliest surviving Central African textiles, dating from the 16th to 18th centuries, from European collections, including the pieces from Ulm Museum, Germany and the the Kungliga Samlingarna, Sweden, shown below.

Luxury Cloth. Kongo peoples; Kongo Kingdom, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, or Angola, 16th–17th century, inventoried 1659. Raffia, H. 755⁄8 in. (192 cm), W. 591⁄2 in. (151 cm), L. of fringe 51⁄2 in. (14 cm). Kunst- und Wunderkammer des Christoph Weickmann, Ulmer Museum, Ulm, Germany (AV D. 48)

Luxury Cloth: Cushion Cover. Kongo peoples; Kongo Kingdom, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, or Angola, 16th–17th century, inventoried 1670. Raffia, 191⁄4 × 197⁄8 in. (49 × 50.5 cm). Kungliga Samlingarna, Sweden (HGK, Tx I, 164)

New Exhibition: “Kuba Textiles: Geometry in Form, Space, and Time” at Neuberger Museum of Art.

March 1 – June 14, 2015

“In the present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Kuba peoples are renowned for their cut-pile raffia cloths. When sewn together and layered, they form extraordinary skirts and overskirts that wrap around the body multiple times. Characterized by resplendent surface elaboration, these garments are detailed and complex like other Kuba decorative arts, a feature found in no other African kingdom. Remarkable not only for their beauty but also for their large scale — some of these textiles reach nearly thirty feet in length — they are worn on special occasions by men and women, and display the status of the wearer.

Kuba Textiles: Geometry in Form, Space, and Time is the first exhibition to bring together works from two of the earliest collections of Kuba textiles: the Musée Royal de l’Afrique Centrale, Tervuren, Belgium, founded by Leopold II in 1897, and the Sheppard Collection at Hampton University in Virginia, gathered between 1890 and 1910 by the American Presbyterian Congo missionary, William Henry Sheppard, the first Westerner to be received by a Kuba king in 1892. Additional important loans to the exhibition come from the Brooklyn Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and three private collections.

The Kuba collections of the Musée Royal de l’ Afrique Centrale and Hampton University distinguish themselves by their precision in dating and provenance. Kuba textiles of established date are rare but the groundbreaking research from these institutions makes it possible, for the fist time, to establish a foundation for their historical trajectory. Twenty-five skirts and overskirts worn by men and women from all social classes have been selected for Kuba Textiles from these two major collections. By comparing the techniques and styles of early documented textiles to examples collected during the past forty years, one can for the first time, through expert evaluation, not only attempt to establish a chronology for these works but also dispel the notion of a monolithic Kuba style.

Woman’s Overskirt (ncák minen'ishushuna)
Kuba peoples, Bushoong group, Nsheng, Democratic Republic of the Congo
Late 19th - early 20th century
Raffia, cotton cloth, wool, appliqué, embroidery, with cut-pile (borders)
26 x 67 3/8 x 4 inches (66 x 171 x 10 cm)
Musée Royal de l’Afrique Centrale, Tervuren, EO.0.0.27401
Gift of Nyim Lukengo’s wife to Marcel Van den Abeele, before 1924
Photo credit/copyright: Collection MRAC Tervuren; photo J.-M. Vandyck, MRAC Tervuren ©

Kuba Textiles considers skirt and overskirt embellishment within the context of Kuba style generally, but unlike other exhibitions that view these works alongside a panoply of Kuba arts, this show considers them alongside directly related objects. The first section of the exhibition features the earliest known wooden sculpture of a seated Kuba king (ndop) from the eighteenth-century, on loan from the Brooklyn Museum. As depicted on the carving, richly embellished accessories will be displayed alongside the carved wooden sculpture. These objects are drawn from the Musée Royal de l’Afrique. The inclusion of a royal sculpture recalls the importance of embroidered textiles among the Kuba peoples since the founder of the kingdom was identified with wearing lavish woven cloth. The second section — the core of the exhibition — displays selected skirts and overskirts, the surfaces of which are entirely covered with embroidered, appliquéd, or tie-dyed patterns displayed in an asymmetrical or irregular way. Amid the textiles there are two small clusters of objects. One of these groupings features postcards and trade cards that illustrate the popularization of Kuba decorated textiles and the splendor of the King’s accoutrements in the early twentieth century until the 1950s. The other cluster displays cosmetic boxes that contained tukula, a powder extracted from a hard wood tree used not only as a cosmetic but also to dye textiles, as well as an ensemble oftukula blocs, known as mbwoong itool, which feature motifs similar to those found on many of the skirts. Made by women, these small-carved blocks, crafted from a camwood paste, were often used in funerary celebrations.

The exhibition concludes by suggesting the influence of Kuba textile design on twentieth century western art and stage design, pairing Kuba textiles with both enlarged facsimile details of a well-known painting by the great Austrian painter, Gustav Klimt (1862-1918), as well as a garment designed by the great German costume designer, Jürgen Rose (b. 1937). In both instances, the painting and the costume borrow from Kuba patterns, share its affinity for the ubiquity of ornamentation, and demonstrate the continuing influence of Kuba design internationally.

Overall, the exhibition features eighty-two works (forty-one textiles and forty-one objects) many of which date from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and most of them publically exhibited for the first time in Kuba Textiles. The exhibition will be accompanied by a 140-page catalogue, fully illustrated in color. It will contain five scholarly essays by: Dr. Patricia Darish, independent scholar; Dr. Christraud M. Geary, Teel Senior Curator Emerita of African and Oceanic Art, Boston Museum of Fine Arts; Christina Giuntini, Conservator, Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Dr. Verena Traeger, Lecturer at the Institute of Cultural and Social Anthropology, University of Vienna; and Dr. Julien Volper, Associate Curator, Musée Royal de l’ Afrique Centrale, Tervuren. These essays will provide important, new scholarship on Kuba textile design from historical, technical, and contextual perspectives, based primarily on archival documents.

Generous support for the exhibition Kuba Textiles: Geometry in Form, Space, and Timehas been provided by The Coby Foundation, LTD, The National Endowment for the Arts, The New York State Council on the Arts, and ArtsWestchester, with support from the Westchester County Government, and Elisabeth and Bob Wilmers. Additional support is provided by Members of the African Arts Council, the Friends of the Neuberger Museum of Art, and the Purchase College Foundation.”

Visit the site of the Neuberger Museum of Art.

Sapeurs - A Short Documentary by GUINNESS (2014)

African hats in Paris auction next week

A fine collection of African hats will be auctioned at Drouot in Paris next Tuesday (18 December) by auctioneers Neret-Minet, Tessier & Sarrou. The catalogue is on-line. Quite modest estimates for some unusual pieces.

Photo above shows Lot 95: West African hat of unknown origin.

Lot 61: Madagascar

Lot 64: Lesotho

Lot 65: South Africa – Ntwana

Lot 68: South Africa – Ntwana

Lot 67: South Africa – Zulu

Lot 75: Cameroon

Lot 79: Kenya – Pokot/Karamajong

Lot 84: Cameroun

Lot 85: Nigeria – Yoruba. Is this really a “priest’s hat” I wonder ?

Lot 88: Congo – Kuba

Lot 90: Congo – Mangbetu

Lot 92: Congo – Mbala

Kuba Images online at Smithsonian Eliot Elisofon Photograph Archives

Some Kuba textiles in use as court regalia, 1970. These are just a glimpse of the wonderful set of photographs taken by Life photographer Eliot Elisofon (1911-1973) of the Kuba royal court in 1970. To see more, and many other remarkable photos, visit the Smithsonian archive here.

Kuba: some early textiles and photographs

In this post, to mark the on-going Kuba textile exhibition at the Textile Museum, Washington, we will look at some fine images of textile production and use among the Kuba, plus a couple of cloths from notable early collections. These photographs were taken by the Polish photographer Casimir Zagourski (1883-1944, )who lived in Leopoldville, in the then Belgian Congo, from 1924 until his death. They form part of a large series of images that Zagourski distributed in the 1930s as postcards and complete albums under the title L’Afrique qui disparait. These were published in a book Lost Africa by Pierre Loos (Skira, 2001). For more information on Zagourski see C. Geary, In and Out of Focus: Images from Central Africa 1885-1960 (National Museum of African Art, 2002).  Click on any image to enlarge.

The earliest foreign visitor who was able to reach the capital of the Kuba kingdom was the African American missionary William H. Sheppard, in 1892. The large collection of artefacts he assembled, including the cut pile embroidered panel below, is now in Hampton University Museum, VA and is the most important source of information on Kuba material culture in the late C19th. See the Center for African Art catalogue Art/Artifact (1988) for more details.

The next important visitor to document the Kuba kingdom and its neighbours was the Hungarian ethnographer Emil Torday (1875-1931.) Torday’s extensive collections of Kuba and related objects gathered between 1900-1909 are now in the British Museum, London, and the MRAC, Tervuren, Belgium. For more information see John Mack, Emil Torday and the Art of the Congo 1900-1909 (British Museum Press, 1990). For some of Torday’s own photographs and an article see here. Torday collected the panel below which is now in the British Museum (Af1979,01.2675.)

“Weaving Abstraction: Kuba Textiles and the Woven Art of Central Africa”–major new exhibition now at the Textile Museum, Washington.

Last weekend I had the pleasure of attending the opening of this important new show and the accompanying Fall Symposium at the Textile Museum. This is a beautifully presented show, with each piece carefully mounted, sensitively lit, and displayed against a restrained chocolate brown background that does justice to the artistry and variety of superb Kuba textiles on view. The wider context of Central African raffia art was shown by the inclusion of a small number of textiles from other regional traditions (more are shown in the catalogue) and by a group of fine baskets, primarily from the Tutsi and Hutu peoples of Rwanda. The Textile Museum and the curator, Vanessa Drake Moraga, are to be congratulated on this splendid exhibition.

Below is the gallery guide. Click on each image for a larger view.

The exhibition catalogue is available from the Textile Museum. Click on the image below:

Finally there is a program of events to accompany the show. Click to view.

“Congo” cloths and Ewe weft float pattern making.

Elephant design from a fine 1960s example of a  distinctive style of Ewe cloth woven from rayon with a large variety of figurative and geometric supplementary weft float motifs on a plain background.  Motifs on this chief’s ceremonial robe cloth include animals, insects, birds, umbrellas, airplanes, forks, stools, leaves etc.

Unlike the designs on most Ewe cloths, the supplementary weft float motifs on this cloth and others of the same type are not identical on both faces of the fabric. Instead the full design appears on the front and only an outline on the reverse. This is because, rather than using the second set of heddles that group warps in sets of 6 or 8 threads  to create the float motifs (so the extra weft goes over 8 warps then under 8 warps etc) the weavers pick out the design by hand, moving the weft over 8 then just under one...

Normal Ewe weft float pattern woven using second set of heddles:

Hand picked “one-sided” float pattern:

According to Malika Kraamer in her PhD thesis, this technique, which was developed by coastal Ewe weavers in the early decades of the C20th, is called "asidanuvo," meaning cloth with hand picked design. In the 1970s large numbers of rayon cloths with simpler, slightly larger motifs in this style were sold for export to Congo, with the result that the style became called Congo cloth by Ewe weavers.

This is an exceptional example, probably dating from around 1960, and in excellent condition. Details, size etc, and more Ewe textiles in our gallery here