Additional information
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Vintage Turkana Doll with Beaded Dress
The Turkana are a Nilotic, semi-nomadic pastoral people inhabiting northwestern Kenya. They live in dry country centered on Lake Turkana which is fed by the Omo River flowing south from the Ethiopian Highlands. Turkana dolls were traditionally carved by fathers for their daughters, with adornments fabricated by mothers and older sisters. As Kenya has a long history with tourists and settlers of European origin, Turkana dolls, headrests and other traditional, used artifacts came to the attention of visitors to the north as ethnographic souvenirs as early as the 1920’s. This doll was collected some time in the 1960s or 70s by Sherri Hunt, an Anglo-South African who for many years ran a popular modern art gallery in Nairobi. It is a fine example of a used Turkana doll with ample signs of indigenous use. It has exceptional details: a two-tone painted face, a luxuriant fiber coiffure, beaded eyes and neckrings, and a beaded leather skirt and cape. Mounted on a custom base.
13″
