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1942.13.983

Pencil drawing on paper of uli body painting designs.

1942.13.983

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Collection type
Object
Description
Pencil drawing on paper of uli body painting designs.
Geographical reference
Nigeria
Africa > Western Africa > Nigeria
Southern Nigeria Anambra state Awka Ugwuoba
Cultural groups
Igbo
Date / Period
Date made: Before 27/09/1933?, uncertain
Date collected
27 September 1933 ?
Acquisition information
Donated: 1942
Materials and processes
Material Paper Plant, Material Pencil, Process Drawn
Dimensions
Length 330 mm, Width 204 mm
Object numbers
Accession number: 1942.13.983 Other numbers: 121069/1-22
Research and responses

For collector's own account of Ibo body-painting and body-painting designs, including how he made his collection, as well as reproductions of some now in the PRM, see his 'Negro Abstract Art: Or Ibo Body Patterns', in South African Museums Association Bulletin, Vol. VI, no. 9 (March 1957), pp. 219-229. This article includes a numbered alphabetical list of 'Names of Body Patterns Painted with Uli', but the numbers do not correspond to those on the drawings themselves. (Copy in RDF.) [JC 2 9 1996]

For a discussion of the PRM's holdings of reproductions of uli designs on paper in relation to issues in the art-historical study of uli, see 'People Have Three Eyes: Ephemeral Art and the Archive in Southeastern Nigeria', by Sarah Adams, in Res, no. 48 (Autumn 2005), pp. 11-32; offprint in RDF: Researchers: Adams (Sarah). Four examples are illustrated (PRM 1932.46.4, 1932.46.4, 1942.12.1003, 1975.3.39). [JC 2 6 2006]

Associated publications
Illustrated in black and white at upper-left of Fig. V on page 223 of 'Negro Abstract Art: Or Ibo Body Patterns', by M. D. W. Jeffreys, in South African Museums Association Bulletin, Vol. VI, no. 9 (March 1957), pp. 219-229). [JC] Reproduced as figure 82 on page 87 of Volume II (Illustrations) of 'Uli Painting and Identity: Twentieth-Century Developments in Art in the Igbo-Speaking Region of Nigeria', by Elizabeth Anne Willis (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Ph.D. thesis, 1997). Region and motifs are identified in the caption, while date is given as c. 1935 (see photocopy in RDF). (See RDF: Researchers: Willis.) [JC 4 2 1998]

Search terms: Picture and Graphic Art, Reproduction, Drawing, Body Painting

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