Boy with Bottle - Hargreaves Ntukwana - For African Art Gallery

Boy with Bottle - Hargreaves Ntukwana - For African Art Gallery

HARGREAVES NTUKWANA (1938 - 1999) 

Born at Crown Mines in Johannesburg on June 17, 1938and was schooled locally until he completed his secondary education and much to the disappointment of his father, Hargreaves decided to follow a career in fine art and music.  He worked as a clerk to pay for his art and music tuition. 

Hargreaves studied at the Pollo Street School of Art in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe. From 1960 to 1962 his studies were under Cordelidos at the Artists' colony in Toledo, Spain. From 1971 to 1973 he received further private tuition from Professor Mel Edwards in New York. Hargreaves traveled extensively abroad and lived in the USA, Switzerland and the former West Germany during the seventies and eighties. Hargreaves was also a accomplishes sculptor and musician, playing double bass, saxophone and piano.

Hargreaves work is very popular in the United States where he developed a popularity after his first exhibition in Boston in 1974.  He lectured in the United States and Switzerland on South African Art. Hargreaves headed a workshop at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in 1984.

"God gives you talent which you in turn make use of and then other people are there to appreciate your God given talent" - Hargreaves Ntukwana

Superb Kuba Drum

Superb Kuba Drum

African drums are among the most important art forms in Africa, they used musical instruments as well as great sculptural African art works that are significant in many ceremonial functions, including dance, rituals, story-telling and communication of messages.

The Kuba tribe consists of about 250,000 people; they are located in Southeastern Congo. The Kuba tribe is actually a collection of smaller ethnic groups. The king of Kuba is always Bushoong, but each group has a representative at the Bushoong court. This is because the Kuba tribe believes the world was created by Bumba who decreed that Bushoong would always be the ruling class.

The Kuba tribe consists of traders, farmers, and fishers. Rivers define the region and provide them with the fish they consume. Women in the tribe would clear the fields and farm crops such as corn, bananas, pineapples, palms, and manioc. Men in the tribe would grow tobacco and hunt. Hunting brought prestige and reinforced the social cohesion between villages. A successful hunt was considered a gift from the gods.

Asante Stool 1622 - For African Art Gallery

Asante Stool 1622 - For African Art Gallery

Every Asante has a personal, utilitarian stool; there are hundreds of patterns expressing not only the owner's gender and social status, but also political orientation. Successful component state leaders bequeath their personal stools to the state as part of its regalia passed down to each new ruler, validating his right to his position. New leaders augment the collection. During his life a ruler may have many personal stools whose support design and decoration express his status and concerns; if he is successful, one of them will be blackened with soot and egg, laid on its side to avoid contamination by hostile spirits and placed in the stool house on its own throne as a shrine and means of access to the spirit of its former owner after his death.

Kwele Ekuk Mask #1623 - For African Art Gallery

Kwele Ekuk Mask #1623 - For African Art Gallery

Ekuk means both “protective forest spirit” and “children of beete.” It displays a flat surface and often has a whitened heart-shaped face, a triangular nose, coffee-bean eyes and small or non-existent mouth. This mask, with two large horns, represents the antelope. The faces are usually painted in white kaolin earth, a pigment associated by the Kwele with light and clarity, the two essential factors in the fight against evil.

Nupe Stool 1617 - For African Art Gallery

Nupe Stool 1617 - For African Art Gallery

These wonderful carved African art stools, created by the Nupe of Nigeria are carved out of one piece of wood with intricate patterns carved into the top. This particular Nupe stool has 10 legs.

The Nupe people live on the south-eastern corner of the plateau region of Nigeria and have had an important impact on their neighbors, both north and south of the Niger river. 

The Nupe are largely a Muslim people, converted by a travelling preacher during the eighteenth century.  The Nupe people have a more abstract form of art.

They are traditionally called the Tapa by the neighboring Yoruba

 

Chokwe Pwo African Passport Mask 1616 - For African Art Gallery

Chokwe Pwo African Passport Mask 1616 - For African Art Gallery

The Chokwe Pwo African art mask is a female mask.  When masqueraded, the performance which is for entertainment, a comedy of manners or social satire, is very popular and is open to every one.  In present times, it is mostly masqueraded at Christmas celebrations, political rallies or workshops on rural development run by NGOs.

The Chokwe Pwo mask can represent (in caricature form) only women in general, but it can also secretly represent a loved one, or be the source of a firm bond between a pwo mask owner and one of his ancestors.

A lot of care is taken in the pwo African masks presentation, the accessories and adornement can give hints to the fashion and period in which the mask was crafted.  The oldest pwo masks have always had beautiful scarification marks and teeth filed to point, which at one time was a sign of beauty.  Earrings are further adorned with coins, inported beads, ribbons and little zinc tokens that served as tax receipts in colonial times.

Passort masks are miniature masks with all the same attributes as the larger dance masks, but were kept on alters of members from the Pwo society.

African Currency Bracelet 1608 - For African Art Gallery

African Currency Bracelet 1608 - For African Art Gallery

Senufo Diviners Bracelet 1607 - For African Art Gallery

Senufo Diviners Bracelet 1607 - For African Art Gallery

The Senufo diviners used bracelets as part of their collection of items that were used during divination rituals.

The Senufo are spread across the Ivory Coast, Mali and Burkina Faso and number about one and a half million in total, sustaining a living off of farming and occasional hunting.  They live in villages that are governed by a council of elders, who in turn are led by a chief that was elected from them.  The tribal structure if controlled through the rituals of the Poro society who initiate and control the men from as young a seven yours of age and on.

Mama Mangam Mask 1599 - For African Art Gallery

Mama Mangam Mask 1599 - For African Art Gallery
The Mama people of northern Nigeria in the Benue River Vallery create Mangam head crests like this which represent a bush cow with open extended mouth and sculpted horns that extend upwards in a continuous single line to be joined at their ends.

When worn it is carried on the top of the dancer's head who is surrounded with a ruff of grasses extending from the bottom of the mask that hides the dancer.
Mangam masks dance during funerals and during the yearly agricultural cycle celebrations.

Mama Mangam Mask 1598 - For African Art Gallery

Mama Mangam Mask 1598 - For African Art Gallery
The Mama people of northern Nigeria in the Benue River Vallery create Mangam head crests like this which represent a bush cow with open extended mouth and sculpted horns that extend upwards in a continuous single line to be joined at their ends.



When worn it is carried on the top of the dancer's head who is surrounded with a ruff of grasses extending from the bottom of the mask that hides the dancer.


Mangam masks dance during funerals and during the yearly agricultural cycle celebrations.

Fang Ngil Mask #1589 - For African Art Gallery

Fang Ngil Mask #1589 - For African Art Gallery
The Ngil masks of the Fang tribe represent a masquerading tradition that waned over sixty years ago. They are worm by members of male Ngil society during the initiation of new members and the persecution of wrong-doers. Masqueraders clad in raffia costumes and attended by helpers would materialize in the village after dark, illuminated by flickering torchlight.
They are characterized by elongated features and a heart-shaped face and were thought to have judiciary powers and so were worn when sentences were handed down by society.

Kwele Ekuk Mask #1594 - For African Art Gallery

Kwele Ekuk Mask #1594 - For African Art Gallery

Ekuk means both “protective forest spirit” and “children of beete.” It displays a flat surface and often has a whitened heart-shaped face, a triangular nose, coffee-bean eyes and small or non-existent mouth. This mask, with two large horns, represents the antelope. The faces are usually painted in white kaolin earth, a pigment associated by the Kwele with light and clarity, the two essential factors in the fight against evil.

Tonga Chigaro Stool #1582 - For African Art Gallery

Tonga Chigaro Stool #1582 - For African Art Gallery

These, now African art,  Tonga stools were important status symbols used by the head of the household and known as Chigaro to the Tonga people.

Fang Ngil Mask #1592 - For African Art Gallery

Fang Ngil Mask #1592 - For African Art Gallery