Kingdom of Ife:
sculptures from West Africa
4 March – 6 June 2010 / Room
35 / £8, Members free
Tickets on sale in December 2009
This major exhibition presents exquisite examples of
brass, copper, stone and terracotta sculpture from West
Africa.
The Kingdom of Ife (pronounced ee-fay) was a powerful,
cosmopolitan and wealthy city-state in West Africa (in what is now
modern southern Nigeria). It flourished as a political, spiritual,
cultural and economic centre in the 12th–15th centuries AD, and was
an influential hub of local and long-distance trade networks.
The exhibition features superb pieces of Ife sculpture, drawn
almost entirely from the magnificent collections of the National
Commission for Museums and Monuments, Nigeria.
The artists of Ife developed a refined and highly naturalistic
sculptural tradition in stone, terracotta, brass and copper to
create a style unlike anything in Africa at the time. The technical
sophistication of the casting process is matched by the artworks’
enduring beauty. The human figures portray a wide cross-section of
Ife society and include images of youth and old age, health and
disease, suffering and serenity.
Co-organised by Fundación Marcelino Botín, Santander, Spain, and
the Museum for African Art, New York, USA, in collaboration with
the National Commission for Museums and Monuments, Nigeria.
Image: Copper head. Found at Wunmonije
Compound, Ife, Nigeria. Late 14th–early 16th century. © Karin L.
Wills/Museum for African Art/National Commission for Museums and
Monuments, Nigeria.