About the Site and Collection

Traditional African figure sculpture is most often religious in nature, providing its artists and patrons with tools to connect the world of spirits with the world of humans. Wood statues in particular serve as temporary resting places for spiritual forces who can assist their owners with earthly needs. To a “western” eye these objects seem as abstract representations of humanity, but really they are more like attempts to create representations of the ineffable spirit world meeting the human world.

The most successful objects capture this ineffability with a combined sense of grace and power; the object is beautiful and strong and conveys a sense of “power at rest”. This is what makes a good physical medium for powerful spirits that are somewhat ambivalent about the affairs of humans.

The collection documented on this site includes dozens of traditional African art sculptures that have that sense of ineffability, that sense of grace and power in both an otherworldly sense and in a human sense. A sense that through grace there is power and with power (used with restraint and wisdom) there is grace.

New pictures of objects will be added as time allows, so if you like what you see keep checking back. Most objects have obvious signs of use, what might be called “cultural accumulation”; patina and signs of wear and even objects added to the original carved figure. These signs of use are strong testament to their efficacy as religious objects within their native culture.

Collecting Philosophy

Many great traditional African art objects exist in obscurity in private ownership, especially in unknown American collections. When these objects come on the market the chain of provenance has been lost for one reason or another. Fear of “fakes” in the collecting community has made it so that “real” traditional objects without provenance are often over-looked by default as “fake”. But most traditional African art is no longer made, and it is almost impossible to fake the truly ineffable, so real objects without provenance but with great aesthetics and clear signs of cultural accumulation will over time join the canon of classic African art. Eventually dating technology will confirm the classic nature of the works that are truly classic. Masterpieces of traditional African art are still out there waiting to be “re-discovered” and recognized by the larger art world. Some of them are shown here on this site.

Image Rights

All images originating at this site are free for use without limitation. Original image file names begin with “africangrace” . Please try to include the africangrace.art watermark so viewers can find their way back to this site, however it is not required.

All other images are included here for reference only and may be subject to the owner’s copyright. A simple image search is recommended to find more information when it is not provided here.

If you are the owner of an image shown on this site and would like to be better referenced and/or linked to please use the Contact form to provide details.