MoAW presents
FACES OF AFRICA
A Mystical View of Tribal Heritage
and it's influence of 20th Century Artists
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Faithfully recreated by award-winning artist Richard W. Jones, this critically acclaimed collection of authentic reproductions of ancient masks, murals, and sculptures celebrates 3,500 years of African tribal art and traditions.
From ancient Nok heads to the spectacular masks of Dogon dances and contemporary South African murals, the popular Faces of Africa is an intimate and mystical view of tribal heritage.
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Wealth, if you use it, comes to an end; learning, if you use it, increases in value. ~Swahili Proverb
The African mask is a sacred and revered object, honored and beloved in addition to being a feared and dangerous entity. For the people of Africa, tribal masks and sculpture represent the invisible force assigned to it, which may be the spirit of a wise ancestor, a tutelary deity or any embodiment of supernatural power from the animal kingdom. Whoever wears a mask combines and unites their strength to the spirit associated with it, enhancing value and heightening power, creating a mystical empyreal bond between the past and present, the sacred living and the honored dead.
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Kifwebe Mask,
Basonga Tribe, Congo
The Basonga are related to a larger tribe known as the Luba and live in the savannah and forest land on the River Lualaba in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Kifwebe masks are distinguished by gender, social status and age of the masquerader by the size and height of the sagittal comb/crest. Male Kifwebe crests are more pronounced than females while junior masks have a smaller, diminutive crest to indicate their lesser degree of social power. This mask is worn by an adult female. The individual who acquires a Kifwebe mask has potent, mystical powers that are said to derive from spirits of the dead. For males of the tribe, these spirits assist in rituals to provide means of controlling social behavior, neutralizing disruptive elements within the tribe, rituals involving the death of a chieftain, initiation rites of young men as well as a whole range of occasions that include public punishment.
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African Art Influence on
20th Century Art
Many of the ancient artifacts housed by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City are similar to several in MoAW's Faces of Africa collection and had a major influence on many of the 20th century's great artist that carry through today.
Matisse, an inveterate museum browser, had likely encountered African sculptures at the Trocadéro museum with fellow painter Maurice de Vlaminck, before embarking on a spring 1906 trip to North Africa. Upon returning that summer, Matisse painted two versions of The Young Sailor in which he replaced the first version’s naturalistically contoured facial features with a more rigidly abstract visage reminiscent of a mask. At about the same time, Picasso completed his portrait of the American expatriate writer Gertrude Stein, finalizing her face after many repaintings in the frozen, masklike style of archaic sculptural busts from his native Iberia.
In The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1913), Stein wrote an account of Matisse’s fall 1906 purchase of a small African sculpture, now identified as a Vili figure from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, at a curio shop on his way to visit her home. Since Picasso was present, she recalled, Matisse showed the sculpture to him. Picasso later told curators and writers of the pivotal visits he subsequently made, beginning in June 1907, to the African collections at the Trocadéro, famously describing his revulsion at the dimly lit, musty galleries but also his inability to turn away from his study of the objects’ inventive and elegant figural composition.
The African sculptures, he said, had helped him to understand his purpose as a painter, which was not to entertain with decorative images, but to mediate between perceived reality and the creativity of the human mind—to be freed, or “exorcised,” from fear of the unknown by giving form to it. In 1907, after hundreds of preparatory sketches, Picasso completed the seminal Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, the painting to whose faceted female bodies and masklike faces some attribute the birth of Cubism and a defining role in the course of modern art throughout the twentieth century.
He continued to make major paintings, sculptures, and sketches of mask-faced
figures composed of fragmented
geometric volumes throughout the Cubist period, including Bust of a Man, from 1908, Head of a Woman, from 1909, and the 1909–10 Woman in an Armchair.
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MoAW's mission is to educate a diverse audience about the history of ancient civilizations and prehistoric life using fossils and artifacts from a variety of cultures and time periods; to enhance universal curriculum development for local and surrounding school districts, colleges, and universities while establishing museum diversity for the Coachella Valley.
Hours of Operation:
Monday - Saturday
10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
(last admission is taken at 5:00 p.m.)
Sunday 12:00 noon to 5:00 p.m.
(last admission is taken at 4:00 p.m.)
Admission:
$15.00 Adults
$12.00 Students, Seniors, & Military
$ 3.00 Discount available for Coachella Valley Residents
MoAW is a member of the American Alliance of Museums and the California Association of Museums.
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Coming Soon to
the Museum of Ancient Wonders
March through September, 2022
VESSELS OF THE GODS
Treasures of the Ancient Greeks
1650 to 410 B.C.E
Reflecting the brilliance of a millennium of ancient Aegean culture, four distinct periods produced the designs of these vases: Minoan, Mycenaean, Corinthian and Attic. Essentially consisting of silhouetted figures drawn against a background of red, black, or white, this art form gradually dies out after the Persian wars, c. 475-450 B.C. Shaped and painted by hand, these exquisite reproductions were created in Greece by master artists from the originals housed in The National Museum, Athens, The Heraklion Museum, The Thera Museum, The Corinth Museum, The Delphi Museum, The Louvre Museum, The Vatican Museum, and The Museo Civico, Brescia.
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Next Week:
Do you have a favorite piece at MoAW you would like to see highlighted in our weekly email? You can visit www.moaw.org, see the collections tab, visit the catalogs, and view Spotlights From The Past.
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Members Perks
So many reasons to join MoAW, you help keep the museum open, allow us to acquire new artifacts, plan and present programs including the Second Friday Fantasy, and help local students learn about ancient civilizations and human origins.
For all that you do to help us we thank you in many ways:
- Unlimited free admission for one year
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Click below for more information and to join.
THANK YOU
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ON DISPLAY AT THE
MUSEUM OF ANCIENT WONDERS
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FACES OF AFRICA:
A Mystical View of
Tribal Heritage
(38 Replica Masks and Sculptures)
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TUTANKHAMUN:
"Wonderful Things"
Treasures From The Pharaoh's Tomb
(124 Egyptian replicas)
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MESOZOICA:
The Age of Dinosaurs
(Approximately 100 fossil cast dinosaur elements and fully-mounted skeletons from around the world.)
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LUCY:
The Story of Human Origins
(Courtesy of the Institute of Human Origins and the National Museum of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa)
On view exclusively at the
Museum of Ancient Wonders
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