Published by SGS, August 23, 2017.
In a recent collaboration, SGS art experts have worked with art historians and conservators at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met, New York) on a study of a Kru Mask from Ivory Coast.
Sources: Sugarloaf Marketing, SGS, Copyright(s), 2017.
This mask previously belonged to Pablo Picasso and it is believed to have influenced the construction methods used for his cardboard and mixed media sculpture, Guitar (1912, The Museum of Modern Art, New York).
Entitled: "Pablo Picasso | Guitar." Museum of Modern Art YouTube Channel; approx. 11seconds. MOMA, Copyright, 2017.
As a 2016-17 fellow in The Met’s Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas (AAOA), Dr. Joshua Cohen is conducting new research on modernist appropriations of African sculpture. His research has led him to this Kru mask, from Ivory Coast, which dates from around the turn of the 20th century.
SGS‘s art services experts stepped in to perform a full technical study of the mask, including visual inspection, photographic documentation in visible and UV light, documentation under stereomicroscope, digital X-ray radiography, X-ray microfluorescence, and pigment/binder sampling. Conservators and conservation fellows at the Met are working to further analyze the pigment/binder samples collected by SGS.
SGS‘s art services experts stepped in to perform a full technical study of the mask, including visual inspection, photographic documentation in visible and UV light, documentation under stereomicroscope, digital X-ray radiography, X-ray microfluorescence, and pigment/binder sampling. Conservators and conservation fellows at the Met are working to further analyze the pigment/binder samples collected by SGS.
Sources: Sugarloaf Marketing, SGS, Copyright(s), 2017.
The crucial issue in this study was to understand the methods and techniques used in the construction of the mask and the composition of its materials. For example, X-radiography has verified the number of pieces of wood used in the mask and how they were assembled with iron nails; and X-ray microfluorescence was used to determine the elemental composition of the pigments. These answers were essential in assessing whether any of the elements was not part of the original artwork.
The results provided by SGS will help Dr. Cohen compare this mask to others from the same period and region, and to better characterize the mask’s influence on the construction techniques used in Picasso’s Guitar. The lab analyses indeed permit Dr. Cohen to clarify his preliminary findings (based solely on visual inspection) presented at the Musée Picasso in Paris in 2016. The overall research project is set to conclude later this year, with publications to follow.
The results provided by SGS will help Dr. Cohen compare this mask to others from the same period and region, and to better characterize the mask’s influence on the construction techniques used in Picasso’s Guitar. The lab analyses indeed permit Dr. Cohen to clarify his preliminary findings (based solely on visual inspection) presented at the Musée Picasso in Paris in 2016. The overall research project is set to conclude later this year, with publications to follow.
More:
Joshua I. Cohen (PhD Columbia University) is a historian of African art specializing in 20th-century cross-cultural exchange. He is Assistant Professor at The City College of New York, and the 2016-17 Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellow in the Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas (AAOA) at The Met.
Joshua I. Cohen (PhD Columbia University) is a historian of African art specializing in 20th-century cross-cultural exchange. He is Assistant Professor at The City College of New York, and the 2016-17 Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellow in the Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas (AAOA) at The Met.
Mascarade Kru avec Krumen, Gabon ou Kamerun, vers 1875-1885, Tirage à l’albumine, 14 x 19.5 cm. Photographe non identifié (vraisemblablement Francis W. Joaque). Museum der Kulturen Basel, Bâle. (F)III 23738 © Museum der Kulturen Basel; Copyright, 2017.
Entitled: "Picasso: Guitars 1912-1914 | Picasso's Cardboard Guitar (1912)." Museum of Modern Art YouTube Channel. approx. 2:27 mins. MOMA, Copyright, 2017.
"Picasso’s inspiration for the sound hole of his Guitar (cardboard and mixed media, 1912) from a cylinder-eyed Ivoirian mask remains the best-substantiated instance of African influence on his art: Picasso confessed it directly to Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler. What has frequently gone unnoted in the literature is that Picasso owned two cylinder-eyed Ivoirian masks of similar outward appearance yet radically different structural design. Of these two masks, the more elegant example Picasso acquired just prior to starting work on Guitar, and can be traced—by way of comparison with very similar and better-documented objects in other collections—to Sassandra, a port city in southwestern Côte d’Ivoire where local participation in international maritime commerce was longstanding. Painted with synthetic laundry bluing and composed of diverse materials held together with nails and glue, the Sassandra mask was assembled in precisely the same manner that Picasso made his Guitar. Picasso thus appropriated not an isolated “sign” but rather an entire constructive sculptural method from a mask that in many ways already instantiated African modernity upon its arrival in Europe. Departing from the dominant conceptual framework of “primitivism,” the paper argues that even in the face of colonialism, the sum of Africa’s cultural interaction with Europe included path-breaking contributions to twentieth-century art as evidenced in Picasso’s work."
Entitled: " Picasso: Guitars 1912-1914 | Picasso's Two Guitars." Museum of Modern Art YouTube Channel. Approx. 3:32 mins. MOMA, Copyright, 2017.
For more information: SGS Art Services.
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