Warriors and mothers: epic Mbembe art.

• Position: The World Yesterday - Brief article

The figures created by Mbembe master carvers from southeastern Nigeria are among the earliest and most visually dramatic wood sculptures preserved from sub-Saharan Africa. Created between the 17th and 19th centuries, and striking for their synthesis of intense rawness and poetry, these figures--mothers nurturing their offspring and aggressive male warriors--originally were an integral part of monumental carved drums positioned at the epicenter of spiritual life, the heartbeat of Mbembe communities.

When these creations were presented for the first time in 1974 at a Paris gallery, they immediately caught the attention of the art world. That exhibition was a groundbreaking event that revealed a tradition unlike any that had defined African art until then. Dispersed internationally among private and institutional collections, these works have been reunited for the first time in "Warriors and Mothers: Epic Mbembe Art," on view through Sept...