The smooth, dark-green stone figure stands out as a modernist abstract interloper among the finely detailed men, women and animals. It resembles soapstone sculpture linked to the Shona of 14th-century Zimbabwe, but collector Paul Tishman received no pedigree from the dealer.
Hopefully, says curator Bryna Freyer, clues will be offered by visitors to African Vision, which opened this week at the National Museum of African Art.
More is known about another surprising artifact, a copper alloy crucifix bearing an Africanized Christ. While the Kongo peoples held onto their traditional beliefs despite efforts of 15th-century missionaries, they added the icon to their spiritual image bank.
The exhibition’s 88 objects were collected by Tishman over two decades starting in 1959. The Walt Disney Company bought the collection and recently donated it to the museum.
“Tishman didn’t buy pieces that were easy to live with,”Fryer said. His decisions stemmed from a love of Africa’s diverse art traditions. African Vision buzzes with variety of form, media, symbolism and function — saltcellars to masks, grave markers to divination boards, fertility statues for land and people. There are paeans to deities, ancestors, warriors and women, for whom beauty emanated from goodness.
“It’s a dream come true,” Freyer says of the collection — for curators and anyone who enjoys journeying into the heart of other cultures.
IF YOU GO
» African Vision: The Walt Disney-Tishman African Art Collection
On view through Sept. 7, 2008
Venue: National Museum of African Art, 950 Independence Ave., SW
Info: Call 202-633-4600 or visit www.afrca.si.edu
