Fang Reliquary Figures

This is a Fang Reliquary Guardian Figure (Eyema-O-Byeri) from the Arts of Africa collection at the Brooklyn Museum.

Here's another one, also from Brooklyn, with a brief descriptive essay.

And another one, at the New Orleans Museum of Art

This different style of Fang Guardian figure (Mbulu Ngulu) is more abstract. This one's also from Brooklyn.

And here's one at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum at Cornell University

In 2007 the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC presented an exhibition called "Eternal Ancestors: The Art of the Central African Reliquary." Unfortunately it's not been preserved on the web. However, you can read a NYTimes review of it, and you can also watch a good 6-part set of lectures from the Met on Youtube.

The Metropolitan Museum's TOAH article "African Influences on Modern Art" is also very useful in explaining the impact such works had on artists like Picasso, Cezanne, Matisse, Modigliani and others.











Oh, and you can totally buy these on EBay, right?

OH, and I was wrong about African artists using lost wax casting. So there.