Portrait mask (Goli kpan)
- L9
With Jacques Kerchache (d. 2001), Paris, by May 10, 1969 [1];
Purchased from Kerchache, through Ralph T. Coe, by Estelle (1925-2021) and Morton (1925-2019) Sosland, Kansas City, MO, May 10, 1969-December 1979 [2];
Their gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1979.
NOTES:
[1] According to a letter from Ralph T. Coe, Director, to Morton I. Sosland, December 3, 1981, copy in NAMA curatorial files, Coe acquired this mask for Estelle and Morton Sosland from Jacques Kercherche in Paris. The dealer sold several masks from the same group and this one was the last available. To Coe’s knowledge, it had never been exhibited.
[2] According to Morton I. Sosland, in a letter to Coe, December 1, 1981, copy in NAMA curatorial files.
Roger Ward, ed., A Bountiful Decade: Selected Acquisitions, 1977-1987, exh. cat. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1987), 24-25, (repro.).
Warren M. Robbins and Nancy Ingram Nooter, African Art in American Collections, Survey 1989 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989), 174, (repro.).
Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 85, (repro.).
Joyce M. Youmans, “African Art at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art,” African Arts 33, no. 4 (Winter 2000), 44-45, (repro.).
Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 248, (repro.).
Julian Zugazagoitia and Laura Spencer. Director's Highlights: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Celebrating 90 Years, ed. Kaitlyn Bunch (The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2024), 99 (repro.).