BY WILLIAM DEWEYPENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY (FORMERLY UNIVERSITY OF IOWA) Ghana; Fante artist Female figure with twins Ceramic 46.4 cm (18 1/4”) Seattle Art Museum, Gift of Katherine White and the Boeing Company, 81.17.442 Many female funerary figures are known, but maternity figures such as this are quite rare. Perhaps this is because, although the figures are portraits of the subjects while young and vigorous, the people they portrayed … Continue reading AKAN ARTS (part three)

BY WILLIAM DEWEYPENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY (FORMERLY UNIVERSITY OF IOWA) Ghana; Akan artist Commemorative head Ceramic H. 18.3 cm (7 3/16″) National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, 86-12-4 A related tradition among Akan peoples involves the use of terracotta human figures and heads. Both the abusuwa kuruwa and these figurative sculptures are memorials to the dead and have equally long histories, but the abusuwa kuruwa were used by ordinary people, while … Continue reading AKAN ARTS (part two)

BY WILLIAM DEWEYPENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY (FORMERLY UNIVERSITY OF IOWA) Ghana; Asante artist Vessel Early-mid 20th century Ceramic H x W x D: 25.4 x 21 x 21 cm (10 x 8 1/4 x 8 1/4 in.) Gift of Emil Arnold 69-35-36 Photograph by Franko Khoury National Museum of African Art Smithsonian Institution Among the Akan-speaking peoples of southern Ghana and adjacent Côte d’Ivoire, ritual pottery and figurative … Continue reading AKAN ARTS (part one)