Vingt-cinq sculptures africaines / Twenty-five... Lot 4040

Vingt-cinq sculptures africaines / Twenty-five African sculptures, exhibition catalogue, Jacqueline Fry, National Gallery of Canada, National Museums of Canada, Ottawa, 1978 Notice: Catalogue of a 1978 exhibition in Ottawa of twenty-five sculptures from sub-Saharan Africa from Canadian collections, this work reflects the image of its country of origin: bilingual. In French and English, navigating between art history and anthropology, thirteen specialized researchers from Canada, the United States and Europe contribute their perceptions of these African "masterpieces". Hsio-Yen Shih, Director of the National Gallery of Canada, writes in the Preface: "Jacqueline Fry, in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Ottawa, and her distinguished collaborators strive to move from appreciation to understanding. They involve us in their quest for the thoughts and actions that motivated such creations. And these twenty-five creations are each represented as a whole through black and white photographs, including photographs in situ, i.e., taken in their original environment. Jacqueline Fry explains this peculiarity in her essay in the introduction to the book: "the space for which these sculptures were conceived has no relation to the space in which they are presented [in an exhibition], and several of them are only parts of a whole: this is the case of the masks, the wooden part being only a component of the total costume. The photographs in the catalogue thus allow us to understand these works in their double dimension: as timeless and universal works and as works marked by a specific era and culture. In addition, apart from these photographs and reflective texts, this book ends with a selected bibliography containing both oratory and bibliographical information.