Headdress

CultureBamana

Dateearly 20th century

MediumWood

DimensionsOverall: 27 1/2 × 9 × 2 inches (69.85 × 22.86 × 5.08 cm)

Credit LineGift of Ralph T. Coe Center for the Arts, 2025

Object number2025.56.1

On View

Not on view

Terms

DescriptionThe Chiwara headdress, representing a mythological half-human/half-antelope figure, glorifies agricultural work and human reproduction. Styles vary according to the regions of origin. This particular Chiwara represents a mother and child. Often the maternity Chiwara would be accompanied by a male Chiwara during the harvest festival.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Selections from the Ralph T. Coe Collection of African Art, Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH, October 3-December 15, 2002.

Provenance

With Alexander-Suggs Gallery, Inc., St. Louis, MO, until August 9, 1974 [1];

Purchased from Alexander-Suggs Gallery, Inc. by Ralph T. Coe (1929-2010), Santa Fe, NM, August 9, 1974-2010;

His bequest to the Ralph T. Coe Center for the Arts, Santa Fe, NM, 2010-2025;

The Coe Center's gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 2025.

NOTES:

[1] According to the object documentation provided by the Ralph T. Coe Center for the Arts at the time of the object's gift, see Nelson-Atkins curatorial files. S. Thomas Alexander III opened the Alexander-Suggs Gallery in 1970 with Donald M. Suggs in St. Louis, MO.

Published References

Oberlin College, Selections from the Ralph T. Coe Collection of African Art (Oberlin, OH: Oberlin College, Allen Memorial Art Museum, 2002), 45 (not illustrated).

Bruce Bernstein, Connoisseurship and Good Pie: Ted Coe and Collecting Native Art (Santa Fe, NM: Ralph T. Coe Center for the Arts, 2015), 38, (repro.).

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