Very Old Boki Headdress

Boki headdress from eastern Nigeria. This is a very old mask, which would have been worn atop a performer’s head with an all-encompassing costume. It is made of Duiker hide-covered wood, with pigmented eyes and teeth fashioned from split twigs. The mask probably once also sported a mop of hair, perhaps from a monkey or possibly human hair adhered in place with tree gum. Mounted on a wooden base. Ex collection Allan Stone, the prominent NY art dealer who passed away in 2007. Allan Stone combined a broad expertise in Abstract Expressionism with a zeal for all manner of sculpture and realist painting. He was famous for obsessively amassing large quantities of artwork including folk and African traditional art.  He appears to have had a particular fondness for Nigerian and Cameroonian skin-covered masks. According to his obituary in the NY Times, written by Roberta Smith, Stone “was considered an expert on the work of the Abstract Expressionists Willem de Kooning, Arshile Gorky, Barnett Newman and Franz Kline as well as their contemporaries John Graham and Joseph Cornell. His gallery was … known for imposing exhibitions of their work, often accompanied by catalogs for which he wrote essays filled with personal reminiscences and unusual insights.”

10″

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