Headdress (Igi Gelede)

Mid- to late 20th century

Fagbite Asamu (active late 19th/mid-20th century) or Falola Edun (active early/mid-20th century)
Yoruba
Nigeria
Coastal West Africa

This dynamic mask of the gelede type depicts two hunters wrestling with a pangolin (or scaly anteater), representing the struggle between civilization and nature, human intelligence and animal force. The figures are shown grabbing the mammal by its back legs but also seem to be losing their balance and giving the pangolin a chance to escape. The dramatic tension of this mask’s upper section presents a sharp contrast to the serene human face below.

Status: On View, Gallery 137
Department: Arts of Africa

Culture: Yoruba
Artists: Fagbite Asamu , Falola Edun
Title: Headdress (Igi Gelede)
Places: Nigeria (Object made in), Africa (Object made in)
Date: 1900-1950
Medium: Wood and pigment
Dimensions: 40 × 36.8 × 48.9 cm (15 3/4 × 14 1/2 × 19 1/4 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Neal Ball
Reference Number: 2008.176

Townsend, Richard F. The Art of Tribes and Early Kingdoms: Selections from Chicago Collections. Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1984.
University of Michigan. Sculpture of Africa: Selections from a Private Collection. University of Michigan Press, 1984.
Drewal, Henry, John Pemberton III, and Roland Abiodun. Yoruba: Nine Centuries of African Art and Thought. New York: Abrams for the Center for African Art, 1989 (p. 216, pl. 252).
Kathleen Bickford Berzock, “Headdress for Gelede (Igi),” Notable Acquisitions at the Art Institute of Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 35, 2 (2009), pp. 8-9, 92.
Moyo Okediji, “Art of the Yoruba, African Art at the Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Studies, vol. 23, no. 2 (1997), pp. 164–181; fig. 29.
Constantine Petridis et al., Speaking of Objects: African Art at the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2020), cat. no. 40, pp. 108-109 (ill.).

Art Institute of Chicago, The Art of Tribes and Early Kingdoms: Selections from Chicago Collections, Jan. 12–Mar. 4, 1984, p. 57 (ill.)
Ann Arbor, Mich., University of Michigan, Sculpture of Africa: Selections from a Private Collection, Nov. 2–Dec. 23, 1984, cat. 14; traveled to Champaign, Ill., Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois, Jan. 19–Mar. 23, 1985.
New York, Center for African Art, Yoruba: Nine Centuries of African Art and Thought, October 1989–January 7, 1990, cat. 252, traveled to Art Institute of Chicago, February 10–April 1, 1990, Washington D.C., National Museum of African Art, May 8–August 26, 1990, Cleveland Museum of Art, September 26–December 9, 1990, New Orleans Museum of Art, January 11–March 24, 1991, and Atlanta, High Museum, April 23–June 16, 1991, Phoenix Art Museum, Sept. 4-Oct. 6, 1991.

Unknown owner (possibly named Perren), France, by the early 1980s; sold to Herbert Baker (died 2001), Chicago and Los Angeles, Calif., about 1980; sold to Neal Ball, by 1983; given to the Art Institute, 2008.

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