id: 112585 accession number: 1931.204 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1931.204 updated: 2022-09-10 09:32:24.229000 Male Figure, by 1931. Execution Totokro Master. Wood; overall: 44.8 x 9.3 x 7.7 cm (17 5/8 x 3 11/16 x 3 1/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of the African Art Sponsors of Karamu House 1931.204 title: Male Figure title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: by 1931 creation date earliest: 1900 creation date latest: 1931 current location: creditline: Gift of the African Art Sponsors of Karamu House copyright: --- culture: Africa, West Africa, Côte d'Ivoire, Baule peoples technique: wood department: African Art collection: African Art type: Sculpture find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * Totokro Master - maker --- measurements: Overall: 44.8 x 9.3 x 7.7 cm (17 5/8 x 3 11/16 x 3 1/16 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: The Silver Jubilee Exhibition opening date: 1941-06-23T04:00:00 The Silver Jubilee Exhibition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 23-September 28, 1941). title: Primitive to Contemporary Sculpture opening date: 1956-09-06T04:00:00 Primitive to Contemporary Sculpture. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 6-October 31, 1956). title: African Master Carvers: Known and Famous opening date: 2017-03-26T04:00:00 African Master Carvers: Known and Famous. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (March 26-July 16, 2017). title: Second Careers: Two Tributaries in African Art opening date: 2020-11-01T04:00:00 Second Careers: Two Tributaries in African Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 1, 2020-March 14, 2021). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS * The Cleveland Museum of Art (3/26/2017-7/16/2017); “African Master Carvers: Known and Famous”. --- PROVENANCE (Paul Guillaume, Paris, sold to African Art Sponsors of Karamu House, Cleveland, OH) date: 1929 footnotes: citations: African Art Sponsors of Karamu House, Cleveland, OH date: 1929-1931 footnotes: citations: African Art Sponsors of Karamu House, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art date: 1931 footnotes: citations: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: 1931- footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: digital description: Purported to be the earliest surviving work by the Baule master artist Totokro, this Male Figure typically comes as a pair of male and female sculptures, and serves as a bridge between the spirit (asye usu) and human worlds in the hand of Baule diviners. Representing idealized humans in their prime, the diviners consider them suitable forms used to cast out disruptive spirits. It is featured here without the female example. Cleveland’s Karamu House, the oldest African American theater group in the country, purchased this Baule male figure in 1929 and donated it to the museum in 1931. wall description: Purchased in 1929 from art dealer Paul Guillaume in Paris, this figure is believed to be the earliest surviving example by the hand of the Totokro Master. In the March 1932 issue of The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, “the finely made statue” was praised as “of the genuine three-dimensional work of high caliber which greatly influenced contemporary French artists, particularly Pablo Picasso.” In the 1960s, however, based in part on its pristinely intact appearance—which may simply indicate that it was sold before being used—the sculpture was erroneously suspected to be a European forgery and labeled as “pseudo-African” in the museum’s object files. --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Petridis, Constantine. "A World of Great Art for Everyone." In Representing Africa in American Art Museums: A Century of Collecting and Display. Kathleen Bickford Berzock and Christa Clarke, 104-121. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2011. page number: Mentioned: p. 119 url: Nzewi, Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Second Careers : Two Tributaries in African Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2019 page number: Mentioned: p. 22, reproduced: p. 31, fig. 19, p. 58 url: https://ingallslibrary.on.worldcat.org/oclc/1090438741 Nzewi, Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Second Careers : Two Tributaries in African Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2019 page number: Mentioned: p. 22, reproduced: p. 31, fig. 19, p. 58 url: https://ingallslibrary.on.worldcat.org/oclc/1090438741 --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1931.204/1931.204_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1931.204/1931.204_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1931.204/1931.204_full.tif