Acquired by Karl-Ferdinand Schaedler in Cotonou, 1960s
Galerie Wolfgang Ketterer, Munich, December 14, 1991, lot 486
Georg Baselitz, Schloss Derneburg/Inning-Buch
Karl-Ferdinand Schaedler, Munich

Stadtsparkasse München, Munich, Afrikanische Kunst/African Art, April 14 - May 26, 1976
Stadtsparkasse Kempten, Kempten, Afrikanische Kunst/African Art, March 1977
Museum Lothar Fischer, Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz, Helmut Rieger - Afrika in mir. Ein Dialog mit aussereuropäischer Skulptur, January 20 - April 14, 2013

Karl-Ferdinand Schaedler, Afrikanische Kunst/African Art, Munich, 1975, p. 161
Stadtsparkasse München (ed.), Afrikanische Kunst/African Art, Munich, 1976, p. 91
Karl-Ferdinand Schaedler, Afrikanische Kunst. Von der Frühzeit bis heute, Munich, 1997, p. 191, no. 119
Karl-Ferdinand Schaedler, Encyclopedia of African Art and Culture, Munich, 2009, p. 428

This monumental ancestor post figure from the Cross River region of Nigeria was formerly in the collection of the German artist Georg Baselitz, who is not only one of the major figures of post-war art but a noted collector of African sculpture. Baselitz has said of his collecting that “I have always had the feeling that other people are too stupid to discover interesting things. That's why I do it myself. I think of collecting as a way to show that I understand what's important better than others do.” (Interview Magazine 1995).

This male ancestor figure possesses a vigor and expressive directness which has an affinity with Baselitz’s art. Like the present figure, which enhances its impression of strength and masculinity in its massive columnar form, which follows that of the tree trunk it has been carved out of, “the elongated form and roughly hewn surfaces of [Baselitz’s] sculptures betray their origin in [...] tree-trunks, which he has rapidly hacked with saws and adzes, leaving the traces of the tools apparent on the surface. To Baselitz […] this represents a spontaneous raw mode of working far removed from that of the tribal craftsman whom he regards as a highly gifted and sophisticated artist.” (Hiller 1991). Baselitz “construes primitivism in terms of the techniques [of] three dimensional image making. It is to him an inherently sculptural question, not one relating to subject or extra-aesthetic function.” (loc. cit.)