Makonde Mask

provenance: GEORGE L. STURMAN COLLECTION OF AFRICAN ART
Feburary 3-March 1, 1998

This mask was acquired by the Sturman museum in 1959 and  has been viewed in the online exhibtion  Sample Pieces from the Sturman exhibition from the Las Vegas Art Museum. It is now part of David Norden's collection.

Tribe - Makonde
Country - Tarzania, East Africa
Medium - Wood & Human Hair
Item - Helmet Mask
Size - 8" H

Makonde Mask availability request

George L. Sturman Museum of Fine Art. 107 E Charleston Blvd, Las Vegas, NV 89104 702-384-2615      
The museum houses contemporary artwork from many famous artists such as Alexander Calder, Salvador Dali, Willem De Kooning, Robert De Niro, and Henri Matisse to name a few. In addition, an extensive collection of African art, animation cels and comic strip art, American art, Master Drawings and Paintings are also on display. They sold some of the African Art pieces among them this old Makonde mask.

Lipiko mask, 19th-20th century, Makonde culture (Mozambique, Tanzania); ex-Sturman Museum collection,  wood, hair; 23cm - 9 inches tall (Photo by David Norden, © 2009)

Lipiko masks are used at boys' and girls' initiation ceremonies to represent spirits (midimu) or to represent a members of group or sometimes caricatures of members of neighboring groups, religious leaders, and colonial officials.. They are noteworthy for their realism, each mask depicting details of a particular facial type and hairstyle.  Click thumbs to enlarge.

read also: WHAT IS ART? THE HUMAN SPIRIT A Meditation in Honor of George L. Sturman. by James Mann, Ph.D., Curator, Las Vegas Art Museum Review by James Mann, Ph.D., Curator , The Purest Art on Earth

I Art is the human imposed upon the natural world. No matter how distorted an artistic product is, it is made of something humanized. Art is made of something external to the world, humanly imposed upon the world, so that even the Impressionist painters couldn't deny the altering agency of the painter's eye, which imposes itself upon the world. This is the human possession of the world, rather than submission to it. Those artists who impose the most upon the world are the farthest from it. Instead of obedience to the world, they deny it, aggress against it. That is the most important thing artists do. As man's spirit becomes alienated from the world, the more beautiful the world is....

Introduction by George L. Sturman, Africa Speaks 

Africa speaks in the tribal art of middle Africa, from east to west, that is amassed in this collection. Through the creation of fetishes, masks, statues, and everyday implements, the picture of a way of life emerges. Its myths, spiritual, physical, emotional and traditional, reflect African life from beginning to end and the hereafter. Each object speaks for the people, individual, or culture it was created for. Handed down for rites and rituals from tribe to tribe, family to family, as the countries and the people develop from the old to the new, old traditions fade into obscurity...

Price: 5,500 € Makonde Mask availability request  

Wouldn't it be nice to own a real Museum piece? Today this is your chance... .