Grebo masks

E187492

Grebo masks are traditional wooden face coverings created by the Grebo people of Liberia and Côte d’Ivoire, notable for their bold geometric features and strong influence on early 20th-century modernist art.

All labels observed (1)

Label Occurrences
Grebo masks canonical 1

How this entity was disambiguated

Statements (49)

Predicate Object
instanceOf cultural artifact
ritual object
traditional African masks
wooden mask
artHistoricalCategory so-called African art in European modernism
associatedWith ancestral veneration
initiation societies
secret societies
coloration often dark patina
sometimes polychrome paint
countryOfOrigin Côte d'Ivoire
surface form: Côte d’Ivoire

Liberia
culturalContext Grebo culture
culturalSignificance marker of Grebo identity
displayedIn art museums
ethnographic museums
private collections
ethnicGroup Grebo people
function embody spiritual forces
mark social status
mediate between human and spirit worlds
hasCharacteristic abstract facial forms
bold geometric features
emphasis on symmetry
emphasis on volume
highly stylized features
minimalist surface detail
projecting cylindrical eyes
rectilinear composition
simplified nose
strong frontal orientation
influenced Cubism
Fauvism
Expressionism
surface form: German Expressionism

early 20th-century European modernist art
influencedArtist Amedeo Modigliani
André Derain
Henri Matisse
Pablo Picasso
materialUsed wood
productionMethod carved by specialist carvers
region Guinea Coast
surface form: Upper Guinea coast

West Africa
timeOfProminentInfluence early 20th century
usedFor ceremonies
rituals
social events
visualLanguage geometric abstraction
reduction of naturalistic detail

How these facts were elicited

Referenced by (1)

Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.