YORUBA DOORS

The door is identified in Special Collections’ TriArte database as the work of Olówè of Isè (c. 1875–c. 1938), perhaps the most influential Yoruba artist of the 20th century. During the first quarter of the 20th century, using wood from the iroko tree, Olówè designed and carved architectural sculptures for several palaces in the Ekiti region of Yorubaland, and acquired great fame as a carver of architectural sculptures such as veranda posts and doors.

Olówè’s work first became famous in Europe when an intricately carved and painted door and lintel ensemble he had created for the palace of the Ogoga (king) of Ikere was exhibited at the 1927 British Empire Exhibition in London. Considered by experts in the British Museum to be “the finest piece of West African carving that has ever reached England,” the door and its lintel were procured for that museum’s collection in exchange for a British-made throne.

Unlike Yoruba low relief work, which is typically two-dimensional, Olówè carved in especially high and uneven relief. His sculptures are characterized by large-scale, elongated, and frequently angular forms, presenting the illusion of movement. He created not only crisply articulated figures, but also deeply patterned and textured surfaces, and engaged in the practice of polychromy, painting in several colors.

In many sculptures, Olówè of Isè reverses or blends gender roles, giving male figures womyn’s hairdos and dressing them in beaded corsets worn by brides.

QUESTIONING THE ATTRIBUTION OF BRYN MAWR’S YORUBA DOOR

The reference image seen here features a dynamic and intricately, carved house door by Olówè of Isè. Its sophisticated handling of the material and extraordinarily high relief seem quite different than that of the door in our collection.

When I first saw the door, I stood with my exhibition group and all of my professors in awe of the piece. My initial wall text described the door as “intricate” and “dynamic,” but as we did further research, examining a number of doors carved by Olówè of Isè, I began to question the attribution of our object. When a visiting professor suggested that the recent gift of an nkondi to our collection might well have been made specifically for the tourist trade, I finally felt emboldened to say, “I don’t think our door was carved by Olówè of Isè.”

– Nkechi Ampah ‘—

When I first read in TriArte, the College’s online database for the Art & Artifacts Collection, that this door had been made by Olówè of Isè, I assumed that the information was true. I did not question where it had come from, or who might have verified it. After hearing Nkechi’s suspicions, I began to study Roslyn A. Walker’s book, Olówè of Isè: A Yoruba Sculptor to Kings, in order to learn more about Olówè’s carving style. I saw that the doors featured in Walker’s book looked very different from the one in our collection. For example, Olówè is known for the figures protruding from his doors, while all the figures on this door are relatively flat. He is also known for carving scenes and legends on his doors, but the iconography in this door does not seem to tell a story. Olówè carved his figures in a dynamic style, so that they appear to be in motion, but that is not the case in this door, where the figures appear to be static. Olówè frequently used Yoruba icons of power and leadership in his carvings, the most prominent of these being the warrior on horseback, who symbolized the military force needed to form kingdoms—and so validated the rule of the leaders who commissioned Olówè to sculpt doors for their palaces. Our door includes no such figures, but features instead a limbless torso and tailed headdress, attributed to handheld sculptures for the women worshippers of the Trickster God, Elegba. I’m puzzled by the placement of a child next to this sculpture associated with a trickster; in Yoruba culture, these two figures would not have been placed side by side. I took a closer look and realized I may have been told the wrong story.

– Gabrielle Smith ‘17