Bamana Mask, Mali

Wood, pigments

H. 36cm

Provenance:

Tristan Tzara, Paris

Publication:

M. Allemand,  L‘Art de l‘Afrique Noire, Musée de Saint-Étienne, 1956, fig. 39

Tristan Tzara, the poet and co-founder of Dadaism in Zurich in 1916, was also one of the early pioneers in the recognition of African art. He presented his significant and early-assembled collection in his house in Montmartre, Paris — built by Adolf Loos — keeping the works always within immediate reach.

The small masks of the Malinke, a subgroup of the Bamana from Mali, are rare. Alongside the mask from the Tristan Tzara collection, two others are of particular note: the one held at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, acquired in 1956 by J. J. Kleemann, and the one at the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris. Both are part of their permanent collections.