Resonance from the Past: African Sculpture from the New Orleans Museum of Art consists of approximately 100 works of art from the New Orleans Museum of Art including masks, figures, musical instruments, ceramics, and fabric and beadwork costumes chosen from the extensive collection of the museum. This exceptional selection is available while NOMA rebuilds its African galleries, using this period to make its collection better known. The exhibition includes all of the best objects from the collection.

New Orleans is famous for music, food, jazz funerals, Mardi Gras, voodoo and other cults. It is considered the most African of American cities, for these elements are linked to the African origins of many of its inhabitants. New Orleans is also considered the birthplace of jazz, perhaps the most influential expression of African American culture. NOMA decided to actively collect works of art from sub-Saharan Africa about forty years ago, motivated by the centuries-old connection between New Orleans and Africa, and by the feeling that for this reason New Orleans deserved an important collection of African art.

The exhibition presents works from west and central Africa, selected by Frank Herreman, formerly the Deputy Director of Exhibitions at the Museum for African Art. It includes important groups of sculpture from the Dogon and Bamana peoples of Mali such as iron staffs used on altars; a selection of figures and masks of the Dan, Wè, and Bete people of Ivory Coast, which run the gamut from idealistic to expressionistic forms; and Akan sculpture from the Baule including a carved door showing a large fish devouring a member of its own species. 

A highlight of the show is the outstanding collection of Yoruba art used in ceremonies of the Ogboni, Gelede, Ifa, and Epa cults. Two of the most famous Nigerian sculptors of the early twentieth century—Areogun of Osi-Ilorin and Olowe of Ise—are represented. A sculpted house post by Olowe and an intricate figurative bowl and tray by Areogun suggest how individual genius modifies what is often taken to be traditional African style. Also included are a richly adorned beaded king’s tunic and several examples of sumptuous beadwork. Other works from Nigeria come from the kingdom of Benin and from the Igbo and Ijo peoples.

The art of equatorial Africa is represented by a royal mask and figure from the Cameroon Grasslands, three major Fang reliquary figures from Gabon, and a female mourning mask of the Punu/Lumbo. Works from the Congo basin include ancestor and power figures, in wood and ivory, from the Bembe, Teke, and Yombe. The exhibition concludes dramatically with figures from the Chokwe, Luba, and Tabwa peoples of Angola.

A 152-page catalogue accompanies the exhibition. It includes an Introduction by William Fagaly, Curator of African Art at NOMA, and an Epilogue that delves into New Orleans’ historic connections with Africa and the relationship between jazz and African art by R.F. Thompson (Yale University), the leading authority on African survivals in African American culture. The body of the catalogue consists of extended captions on the objects by prominent scholars, based on their personal field research.