Dan Bird Mask, Côte d'Ivoire or Liberia

Charles Ratton, Paris
Carlo Monzino, Lugano, acquired from the above
Private Collection, acquired from the above
Sotheby's, London, June 17, 1991, lot 104, consigned by the above
Edwin and Cherie Silver, Los Angeles, acquired at the above auction

The Center for African Art, New York, African Aesthetics: the Carlo Monzino Collection, May 7 - September 7, 1986

Susan M. Vogel, African Aesthetics: the Carlo Monzino Collection, New York, 1986, p. 39, fig. 33

The sublimely beautiful masks of the Dan people are among Africa’s most refined sculptural styles. Inhabiting the region bisected by the border between present-day Cote d'Ivoire and Liberia, the Dan participated in masquerades which have important judicial, political, religious, and social functions. The masks worn by the dancers in such masquerades represent a diverse pantheon of characters that embody particular spirits. These take on human and animal forms, or as in the case of the present mask, a fantastic mixture of both. The mask as an object is endowed with spiritual power, and distinguished masks may be passed on from generation to generation, their potency increasing with age.

This large mask has a profound black glossy patina, the result of repeated anointment and use, with encrustations of ritually-applied materials. The voluminous downward curved beak recalls that of a hornbill, and is enhanced by small serrated teeth, a feature which the sculptor has borrowed from another animal. The mask’s anatomy is human also, with heavily lidded eyes facing forward above angular cheekbones. Above the eyes is a diadem of points, which recall a costume headband, or a formation of feathers, or perhaps a highly-abstracted interpretation of a headband of vertical mammal horns worn by Dan warriors and referenced in other bird masks (Vogel, African Aesthetics, 1986, p. 39).

The sculptor has built the volumes of this mask in a masterful arrangement of cubistic planes. The highly stylized radiating points of the diadem rise in an arched row from the forehead, predicting the exuberant Art Deco crown structures such as Manhattan's Chrysler Building; beneath this the bone structure of the human eyes and cheeks are formed by sophisticated polyhedrons, bilaterally symmetrical and divided by a strong ridge at the center of the brow. The central ridge continues down into the patiently-smoothed mass of the enormous beak, the upper mandible of which is underscored by two deeply inscribed parallel lines. The elegant slits of the eyes project feminine beauty, fused with the solidity and strength of a powerful bill, structured cheekbones, and spiked diadem.

These aesthetics no doubt appealed to the mask’s previous owner Charles Ratton, the preeminent dealer of indigenous cultures' art in twentieth century Paris, who propelled the evolution of taste in this type of art among Western audiences. With close ties to the Parisian avant-garde, including André Breton, Tristan Tzara and Paul Éluard, Ratton helped to elevate the status of so-called "primitive" arts, which he considered worthy of equal attention in the canons of world art.

The iconography of a part-human, part-bird is a powerful artistic concept which has appeared across various world cultures. Bird-human hybrids appear in Oceania and Papua New Guinea, and the surrealist Max Ernst famously drew inspiration from the bird men of Easter Island reliefs and wood sculpture. According to Maurer, "The Primitive aspect that Ernst saw in himself [...] not only enabled him to live in harmony with nature, but helped him explore all her mysteries and appropriate the secrets of her creative powers. In both classical and tribal mythology, animals and their anthropomorphized variants appear as symbols of both the spiritual forces of nature and man's mystical relationship to these forces. These types of images appear throughout Max Ernst's oeuvre - a bizarre menagerie of insects, fish, animals, and fantastic hybrids that constitute his personal bestiary. The bird, however, is by far his favorite and most frequently represented creature, and in his intimate association with birds we find Ernst's most significant association with the Primitive" (Mauer, in Rubin, ed., Primitivism, vol. II, 1984, p. 553). Ernst went so far as to identify himself with a mythical character named Loplop, a bird-man who frequently recurred in his drawings, paintings, and collages. Ernst's famous 1934 collage-novel Une semaine de bonté is rich with references to classical mythology as well as forms inspired by the arts and myths of primary cultures, and especially bird-headed human figures, expressions of a powerful spiritual and artistic affinity across distant cultures.