Figure Screen (Duein Fubara)

Early 20th century

Kalabari Ijo
Nigeria
Coastal West Africa

Figure screens were made by the Kalabari to honor, memorialize, and communicate with deceased leaders of their trading or canoe houses. One would have formed part of an altar in a side room of a meetinghouse. Originating in the 19th century, when European commerce flourished in the Niger Delta, these screens may have been inspired by early portrait photographs. Here, the central figure representing the house leader wears a British top hat.

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

Culture: Kalabari
Title: Figure Screen (Duein Fubara)
Place: Nigeria (Object made in)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: Made 1900–1940
Medium: Wood, pigment, and fiber
Dimensions: 101.6 × 69.9 × 20.3 cm (40 × 27 1/2 × 8 in.)
Credit Line: Joanne M. and Clarence E. Spanjer Fund; purchased with funds provided by of Cynthia and Terry E. Perucca, Marshall Field V, and Lynn and Allen Turner funds; Mr. and Mrs. David B. Ross Endowment; Alsdorf Foundation
Reference Number: 2005.154

Kathleen Bickford Berzock, “Ancestral Altar Screen (Duein Fubara),” Notable Acquisitions at the Art Institute, Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 32, 1 (2006), pp. 12-13, 94.
Kathleen Bickford Berzock, “Ancestral Altar Screen (Duein Fubara), Notable Acquisitions at the Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Studies, vol. 32, no. 1 (2006), pp. 12-13 (ill.).
Constantine Petridis et al., Speaking of Objects: African Art at the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2020), cat. no. 46, pp. 118-119 (ill.).

Unknown owner, Rivers State, Nigeria, by early 1990s [this and the following according to personal communication from Charlie Davis, Davis Gallery, in acquisition documentation]; to unknown owner, Lomé, Togo, from early 1990s; sold to Charlie Davis, Davis Gallery, New Orleans, La., from 1994; sold to the Art Institute, 2005.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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