Ceramic Arts in Africa - Recherche en IA spécialisée au MIT

Ceramic Arts in Africa

It has been nearly two decades since African Arts published
the special issue on African ceramic arts edited by Marla

Berns (1989, vol. 22, Non. 2). Since then, there has been note-

worthy collaborative research on ceramics in particular

régions, a number of important localized studies by indi-

vidual scholars, and several widely distributed catalogues

published in conjunction with major exhibitions surveying

African ceramic arts. In parts of Africa where ceramic vessels

are pervasive some are clearly the focus of artistic elabora-

tion, whether they serve as objects of both utility and beauty

in domestic settings or carry symbolic import central to social

identité, economic and political status, ritual practice, et

belief. Their study reveals the skill and invention of their mak-

ers, who are, more often than not, women.1
And yet, ceramics continue to be underrep-

resented in Africanist art historical literature

in proportion to their importance as a form

of expressive culture, and signiﬁ cant gaps

remain in our awareness and understanding

of historic and contemporary ceramic tradi-

tions across Africa.

This issue brings together the research of a

number of scholars whose work exempliﬁ es

some of what has been accomplished in the
last two decades.2 The articles foreground
important themes in the study of African

ceramic arts, most especially documentation

and historical reconstruction, iconographic

analyse, the elucidation of ritual and social

signiﬁ cance, and the celebration of individual

artistry. In this introduction we offer some

1 An installation view of “For Hearth and Altar: African
Ceramics from the Keith Achepohl Collection,” Dec. 3,
2005–Feb. 26, 2006. Storage containers from Burkina Faso
are featured on the large platform in the foreground.
PHOTO: SUSAN HUANG, © THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO

10 | african arts SPRING 2007

reﬂ ections on our experiences researching and writing about

African ceramic arts and we signal some of the limitations

of the ﬁ eld’s current state of knowledge in an effort to spark

interest in future research.

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A CURATOR’S PERSPECTIVE
by Kathleen Bickford Berzock

Curators are oft en handed remarkable opportunities through the
serendipity of their careers. Dans 1995, when I began work at the
Art Institute of Chicago, Keith Achepohl was already committed
to giving a large portion of his expansive African pottery collec-
tion to the museum and in turn the museum was committed to
exhibiting and publishing a selection of works from the collec-
tion. Th e pursuit and culmination of this project would occupy
me for ten years and would result in the exhibition and catalogue
For Hearth and Altar: African Ceramics from the Keith Achepohl
Collection (fig. 1). During this time Achepohl continued to add
to his collection with purchases that broadened its representa-
tion for a public audience and I made select acquisitions for the
museum of pieces that complemented Achepohl’s. Because we
were looking at the vessels individually and considering nuances
of form and embellishment, I wanted my research as closely as
possible to refl ect each piece’s uniqueness as well as where it fi t
within a cultural tradition. Th is process made me aware of the
wide gaps in the literature for many of the kinds of ceramic ves-
sels appearing on the market. It also drew my focus more sharply
to the transition that functional objects such as pottery make
when they enter the art market and how this has aff ected the way
pots are represented in private collections and museums.

African ceramics have largely been brought to broad public
attention through a handful of publications developed in con-
junction with major exhibitions and these stand as important
overviews of this fi eld of collecting.3 Th ey record the growing
interest in vessels as art objects from the 1970s through the pres-
ent day as well as the decreasing amount of documentary infor-
mation that accompanies them. One of the earliest, Nigérian
Pottery by Sylvia Leith-Ross (1970), was the result of an ambitious
eff ort to collect and catalogue vessels from across the country for
display in a permanent installation at the National Museum in
Jos. Cependant, in her introduction Leith-Ross bemoans the incon-
sistency of the information they were ultimately able to provide
for specifi c vessels, adage, “what information is given can only
be regarded as a pointer to what a fuller study of this well-nigh
unknown field might reveal. The Catalogue itself should be
looked on as no more than a fi rst attempt at bringing to light
the unexpected wealth and interest of Nigerian Pottery” (Leith-
Ross 1970:15; a more recent project of this type is documented in
Gallay et al. 1996). Roy Sieber’s African Furniture and Household
Objects (1980), Arnulf Stössel’s Afrikanische Keramik (1984), et
Nigel Barley’s Smashing Pots: Works of Clay from Africa (1994)
feature work drawn from museum and private collections pri-
marily in the United States and Europe. Working from existing
records, they are able to provide documentation for some of the
vessels they illustrate. Sieber introduces the pottery of Africa in
a general way and addresses the twenty-four illustrated vessels in
brief captions.4 Stössel illustrates more than 400 pots primarily
from European museum collections and addresses a comprehen-
sive slate of issues before presenting a geographical survey-style
catalogue of the works. Barley features vessels from the Museum
of Mankind in London organized around broad themes such as
pottery’s associations with the earth or the human body, pots

2 Pitcher for palm wine (Mba Molu), late 20th century
Martin Fombah, (born c. 1950), Nsei, Cameroon
Blackened terracotta, 30.5cm x 20.3cm (12″ x 8″)
Gift of Keith Achepohl, 2004.742.
PHOTO: ROBERT LIFSON, © THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO

Martin Fombah’s work caters to the new elite in Nsei, who reinforce their
status with displays of wealth including pottery. Like much of Fombah’s
travail, this pitcher brings new sculptural emphasis to traditional symbols of
power and authority. Here a man’s head, crowned with the two-lobed pres-
tige hat of Grassﬁ elds’ chiefs and title-holders, sits squarely at front. To the
left is a bag with a looped handle used to hold sacred objects by members
of the palace regulatory society. Below are stylized renderings of the double
gong, an instrument strongly associated with chieftancy and court ritual.

as containers for spirits, and the nature of ceramic decoration.
Karl-Ferdinand Schädler draws the approximately 300 vessels
illustrated in Earth and Ore: 2500 Years of African Art in Terra-
cotta and Metal (1997), an exhibition presented at the Museum
Villa Rot in Ulm, Allemagne, from private collections in Europe
and the United States though none are accompanied with infor-
mation about when, où, and by whom they were collected.

It is clear that today the market for African ceramics is outpac-
ing scholarship. Published research on African ceramics is highly
idiosyncratic and uneven in depth and cultural representation.
Only a few traditions have been the focus of in-depth study by
multiple researchers off ering complementary perspectives.5 More
commonly one or two studies must suffi ce to represent an entire
cultural practice.6 And there are many traditions for which no
studies have been published. Th is means that quite oft en there
is no published source documenting the kinds of vessels that
are being introduced on the market. Adding to the sparseness of
information on vessels off ered for sale, those purchased in towns
and villages for resale are rarely accompanied by documentary
information. In parts of West Africa this work is dominated by
traders who generally have no attachment to the cultural value of
these objects and who have little incentive to record where and
by whom a pot was made, how old it is, who owned it, and how
it was used.7 Th is is true even of contemporary wares that take
traditional forms. It came as a welcome surprise to me when Sil-
via Forni identifi ed a pitcher in the Achepohl collection (fig. 2),
which had arrived in the United States unattributed, as the work

SPRING 2007 arts africains | 11

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of an innovative contemporary Nsei potter named Martin Fom-
bah. Fombah was among the potters with whom Forni worked
during fi eld research in 2000–2001. She has written about him
in her dissertation, but beyond that he has not received interna-
tional attention (Forni 2000-2001:167–8).8

Where older wares are concerned, the lack of information is
also in part because their local histories may be fading or long
forgotten. Douglas Dawson, the most prolifi c dealer of African
pottery in the United States, has remarked that vessels oft en
arrive “encrusted with a patina of neglect not use” (2005:5).
Certainly it is easy to fi nd instances of pottery supplanted by
mass-produced plastic, aluminum, or enamel containers that
are cheaper, lighter weight, less vulnerable to breakage, ou plus
fashionable. Vessels for uses that were once widespread have also
lost their relevance because of changes in cultural and religious
practices or increasing access to modern conveniences. Th ese
changes feed the market, for as the emotional and cultural value
of an object wanes, owners become more open to the potential
economic value of their possessions.

Toujours, whether old or new, vessels oft en are stripped prema-
turely of important aspects of their unique identities when they
enter the market. A case in point: Dans 2003 Douglas Dawson pur-
chased a group of large, asymmetrical vessels embellished with
appliquéd imagery, one of which was acquired by the Art Insti-
tute of Chicago (fig. 3; Berzock 2005:102–104, fi g. 54). Dawson
reported that these vessels “are probably from the Ewe region of
Kpando [Ghana]. According to elderly women there, the pots
are no longer made or used, but formerly were placed on altars
with each vessel having a very specifi c symbolic meaning” (Daw-
son 2003:42–5; for two other such pots see Dawson 2005:36–9).
My subsequent research on Ewe pottery revealed little by way of
published literature. I located two related, but smaller and less
elaborate jars, in the collection of the Linden-Museum, Stutt-
gart, that were collected in the early twentieth century. Like the
Art Institute’s vessel, they had small cups attached around their
shoulders and one was embellished with an appliquéd snake
(Berzock 2005:104 et 196 n. 4). Th e Ghanaian art historian Nii
Quarcoopome confi rmed that pots with similar miniature cups
are made for a snake cult that is found across southeast Ghana,
Togo, and Republic of Benin (Berzock 2005:196 n. 5). A Dutch
exhibition catalogue on Vodun arts in West Africa also illustrated

3 Shrine vessel, early/mid-
20th century
Kpando or vicinity, Ghana
Terracotta, 58.5cm x 35.5cm x
42.5cm (23″ x 14″ x 16¾”)
Atlan Ceramic Club Endow-
ment, 2003.76
PHOTOGRAPH BY BOB HASHIMOTO.

A potter of remarkable skill
made this asymmetrical shrine
vessel. Around the shoulder an
arcade of buttresses support
a series of small, engaged
pots, while human arms are
rendered in appliqué across
the belly, subtly transforming
the vessel into a voluptuous
standing ﬁ gure.

12 | african arts SPRING 2007

pots that appeared to be related and that bore appliquéd imag-
ery (Hubner 1996:130–4, fi gs. 1, 3, 10, 11, 20, 26, 27). Cependant, je
was able to locate no source that illustrated shrine pots of this
stature or inventiveness of form. As major shrine vessels, in all
likelihood they were too important, too sacred, and too private
in nature to be openly discussed in and around Kpando. j'ai gagné-
der how and why this changed, when the shrine stopped being
maintained and protected, and who initially sold these spectacu-
lar vessels. Également, I wonder about the gift ed potters who made
them and what motivated their fantastic forms. It may still be
possible through fi eld research to learn something about them.
Lisa Aronson’s Research Note in this issue suggests the richness
of Ewe pottery practice in Ghana today, though she also records
the increasingly wide infl uences that are prompting innovations
by potters.

When a vessel arrives on the market divorced from its func-
tion and its places of origin, it is given a new, more generalized
identity—Bamana, Pare, Yoruba; water container, storage con-
tainer, ritual vessel. It is at this juncture that the lack of com-
parative studies among interrelated pottery traditions leads to
misattribution, with one ethnic label becoming a catch-all for
pots exhibiting similar traits. Th is has been true, par exemple,
of pottery-rich west-central Cameroon, home to the Grass-
fi elds chiefdoms and to numerous smaller, more decentralized
ethnicities to their west. While we have two excellent studies
focusing on the thriving pottery centers of Nsei and Bamessing
in the Grassfi elds (Argenti 1999, Forni 2000-2001), there is little
documentation of other pottery traditions in the region, lequel
are quite distinct from community to community.9 Th e Ache-
pohl collection includes a beautiful and austere vessel that had
been misidentifi ed as coming from the Grassfi elds based on its
shape. When I sent photographs of it to scholars who had stud-
ied Grassfi elds pottery, they were certain that it was not from the
towns where they had conducted research, but they could not tell
me where it was from. I was put in contact with Father Hermann
Gufl er, a long-time missionary in the region, and his colleague
Genesis Ghasi. Th ey thought the vessel was probably from the
Mambila village of Lip and were able to confi rm this by making
a visit there (Berzock 2005:144, fi g. 88). Th e fact that knowledge-
able dealers, collectors, curators, and scholars did not recognize
this vessel as Mambila speaks directly to the limited understand-
ing we have of the scope and breadth of Mambila pottery. Th ese
limitations can only be redressed through better documentation
when vessels are collected and through research in the fi eld.

In some ways the problem that I have outlined exists across
the fi eld of African art. All too oft en works of art in collections
are accompanied by little or no specifi c information about their
origins and functions. Cependant, it is worth asking why ceram-
ics in particular have not been the focus of more attention from
art historians even in areas where research on other art forms is
richly nuanced. Perhaps the most telling example of this over-
sight is among the Yoruba, a subfi eld of Africanist studies with
an unparalleled depth and breadth of literature across disciplines,
including art history. Th e origins of Yoruba pottery stretch back
to the exquisite vessels and sculptures of ancient Ife. Th e mod-
ern Yoruba are prolifi c potters, with a stunning array of vessels
that run the gamut from daily household to strictly ritual uses,

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4un,b Osun shrine jar,
early/mid–20th century
Osogbo or vicinity, Nigeria, Yoruba
Terracotta, 59.7cm x 31cm
(23½” x 12¼”)
Gift of Keith Achepohl, 2005.277.
PHOTO: ROBERT LIFSON.

Elaborate raised and pierced deco-
ration articulates the entire surface
of this long-necked jar, tandis que le
application of stylized eyes, ears,
nose, and mouth transform it into a
half ﬁ gure. In the region of Osogbo,
in the Osun River Valley, jars like this
may be placed on shrines dedicated
to the diety Osun, the mother of
life-giving waters.

with many of the most spectacular made specifi cally to be placed
on shrines (fig. 4). Robert F. Th ompson’s seminal 1969 article
on the Egbado-Yoruba potter Àbátàn remains the most in-depth
study of an exceptional potter’s work and the meaning and sig-
nifi cance of a particular kind of shrine vessel. Dans 1972 Maude
Wahlman published a valuable comparative study of pottery
techniques in two Yoruba regions. Th is was followed in the 1980s
and 1990s with multiple publications (including Beier 1980, Ojo
1982, Isaacs 1988, Fatunsin 1992, Ibigbami 1982 et 1992, et
Allsworth-Jones 1996) which survey various techniques and uses
for pots; cependant, none of these studies approach the depth of
critical inquiry presented in Th ompson’s work. De même, le
captions for the four shrine vessels illustrated in the catalogue
of the landmark exhibition Yoruba: Nine Centuries of African Art
and Th ought reveal intriguing details that remain unexplored in
larger studies (Drewal et al. 1989:161, fi g. 177, et 226, fi gs. 267-
9). We are told for instance, that the shape of one lidded pot is
found most oft en on Erinle shrines, but its iconography is usu-
ally associated with Sango (ibid., 160-61). Another describes “a
ritual vessel possibly for Yemoja, goddess of the river Ogun …
transformed into a woman’s body whose breasts sustain life in
feeding a child” (ibid., p. 226). Th ese tantalizing descriptions sug-
gest the great, untapped potential of Yoruba pottery as an area of
recherche, just as the remarkably varied vessels in the Achepohl
collection hint at the artistry that can be found in pottery from
many other parts of Africa.

FIELD RESEARCH AND MAKING OBJECTS SPEAK
by Barbara E. Frank

If we wish to understand better the social and spiritual mean-
ings of individual pots, then we need to know something of the
women and men who made them and the social, économique, et
spiritual contexts within which they were conceived, created, et

used. As already suggested, all too oft en objects enter museum
and private collections with their unique histories silent. Making
objects speak requires the concerted and collaborative eff orts of
art historians, anthropologists, and other scholars from a wide
range of disciplines.

Some of the most intense, sustained, and interdisciplinary
research on ceramics in Africa has been in the Inland Niger
Delta region of Mali, where pottery production remains a major
industry (figs. 5–6). Following a number of important individ-
ual studies (Gardi 1985, LaViolette 1987, 2000) and in close col-
laboration with the Musée National du Mali and the Institut des
Sciences Humaines, Allan Gallay led a team of archaeologists
on a series of ethnoarchaeological projects in the Inland Niger
Delta region between 1988 et 1994, in an eff ort to link styles of
technology and object styles and types with demographic infor-
mation about gender, family heritage, and ethnicity (Gallay and
Huysecom 1989; Gallay, Huysecom, and Mayor 1998; Gallay et
al. 1996, 1998). In these studies careful recording of individual
artist by patronym as well as artisan class, ethnic affi liation, et
location provides evidence of the structured coherence of diff er-
ent social systems, as well as revealing instances of the variability
of identity and status (see LaViolette 1995). Th ey have identifi ed
distinct technologies used to form pots and located them within
specific regional and ethnic contexts10 and documented the
range and depth of ceramic assemblages. De la même manière, art historian
Christopher Roy (1975, 1989, 2000un, 2000b, 2003) has focused
much of his research defi ning diff erent forming technologies
and identifying them with particular ethnic contexts in Burkina
Faso. His recent dvd African Pottery Techniques (2003) off ers
nine distinct forming and fi ring sequences, remarkable for the
skill and dexterity of the artists who make what they do seem
eff ortless. What emerges from these studies is not only insight
into the archaeological record, but also an unusually rich picture
of the relationship between ethnic diversity, craft specialization,
and the technology of production.11

SPRING 2007 arts africains | 13

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6 Somono potter
Niamoye Nientao
ﬁ nishing a water jar.
Jenne, Mali. PHOTOGRAPH
BY ADRIA LAVIOLETTE, 1983.

My research has made me realize how important it is to begin
with careful documentation of all aspects of ceramic produc-
tion, including the tools and processes of production as well as
the range and variation in ceramic assemblage. Marla Berns’
research note provides just such a description of pottery mak-
ing processes by Mo women in Bonakire, Ghana, at a particular
moment in time. In her subsequent research in the Benue valley
of northern Nigeria (1986, 1989b, 1990, 2000) Berns combines an
art historical attention to the style and iconography of ceramic
forms with contemporary linguistic and anthropological data on
ritual practice and meanings. She argues that ceramic arts in this
region are conceptualized as active participants in maintaining
and legitimating social relationships not just in this world, mais
between the living and the ancestral dead. Th ere is no easy divi-
sion between sacred and profane, thus the symbolism of fi gura-
tive vessels embedded in ritual contexts is inseparable from the
material symbols of daily life.

Iconographic analysis is also central to Christopher Slogar’s
recherche. His contribution to this issue examines contemporary
Calabar visual culture in order to interpret the corpus of recently
recovered archaeological ceramics from the region. What he
fi nds is a close correspondence between the ostensibly abstract
decoration on many of the archaeological vessels with the ideo-
graphic script known as nsibidi. His research off ers the possibil-
ity of a much greater time depth for this visual language, if not
its symbolic associations.

While there may be many places in Africa where changes in
religious beliefs and practices has led to the abandonment of
some pottery forms, there are other places where the ritual sig-
nifi cance of pots seems to endure. Judith Sterner, Nicholas David,
Gavua Kodzo, and Scott MacEachern (David 1992; David et al.
1991; MacEachern 1994; Sterner 1989, 1995) have documented
the central role of ceramics in all aspects of ritual and social life
in the Mandara mountain region of northern Cameroon. Th eir
research explores the strong and vital association between pots,
people and the spirit world.

De la même manière, Silvia Forni’s work with potters in several communi-
ties in Cameroon (2000–2001) is based on close observation of all

5 Water container, late 19th/mid–20th century
Mali, Somono
Terracotta, slip, and kaolin, 60cm x 42cm (23½” x 16½”)
Gift of Keith Achepohl, 2005.222.
PHOTO: ROBERT LIFSON. © THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO

A Somono woman is often given a capacious and beautifully decorated
water container upon marriage and it remains an important part of her
househould furniture throughout her lifetime. The patterns on this vessel
are impressed with combs, sticks, and stamps. Though a few potters
still practice such time-consuming techniques, slip-painted designs have
been gaining in popularity in recent days.

This approach has been especially influential for my own
recherche. Like my earlier work on Bamana and Maninka potters,
my current project examines the historical links among ceramic
traditions by mapping social identity, ceramic technology, et
objects in a comparative regional framework. In my essay here,
I focus on a group of women potters in southeastern Mali who
do not fi t the blacksmith-potter paradigm so prevalent among
Mande peoples elsewhere. Instead I look to the south and east,
adopting a broad geographical frame of reference that has pro-
vided me with important clues to the origins of these women
and their ceramic technology.

Th e association of blacksmiths and potters is part of what led
the sculptor Janet Goldner to the community of Kalabougou,
Mali. Although she was interested in learning about how they
made pots, she also wanted to understand something of the con-
text of their lives. Her photo essay documents aspects of their
practice at the same time as it provides a personal and intimate
perspective on the lived experience of these women as artists,
craft swomen, mothers, and wives.

14 | african arts SPRING 2007

aspects of pottery production and marketing, but is also informed
by an anthropological focus on the meaning and signifi cance of
pottery within the social and spiritual lives of her informants. Th e
focus of her article is on pottery production and use in the Grass-
fi elds kingdom of Babessi, where she argues that from birth to
death and beyond, pots are important agents in social life. Th eir
role shift s from humble to offi cial, from male to female, depuis
individual to communitarian according to the specifi c setting and
occasion in which they are placed in the center of action.

Laurel Aguilar was conducting research on Chewa men’s ini-
tiation practices when she became aware of the parallel mythic
and symbolic signifi cance of women’s pottery production. Elle
describes some of the metaphorical associations embedded in
the making of pottery and refl ects on how these illustrate Chewa
social values.

De la même manière, Lisa Aronson went to Ghana to do research on Ewe
vodun body arts, only to fi nd that pottery production provided a
useful entrée to understanding vodun practice. She documented
the unusual technique the Anlo-Ewe of Ghana employ for build-
ing their everyday and ritual (Vodun) pots, which can be under-
stood as a visualization of the spiritual world, especially when
seen in concert with the iconographic embellishment of the ves-
sels. As she suggests, this domain off ers a great deal of potential
for further research.

While as researchers we may be drawn to a particular pot-
ter whose abilities seem to rise above the level of the others,
most of the concern of art historians has been on understanding
the larger cultural tradition within which they operate. Th ere
have been very few studies that focus on individual potters rec-
ognized for their exceptional artistry. When the British pot-
ter Michael Cardew fi rst encountered the work of Ladi Kwali,
a Gwari potter of Northern Nigeria, he was impressed by her
skills manipulating clay:

To watch Ladi Kwali building her pots by hand is an enlightenting
experience, quite as stimulating as one’s fi rst sight of a good thrower
at work. You realize with surprise that it is not necessary to have a
potter’s wheel in order to achieve pots which have the appearance of
perfect symmetry. One also experiences … the exhilaration of watch-
ing a craft sman who seems to be doing the impossible and to be
always on the brink of disaster, yet is entirely unafraid, and entirely

7 Gwari potter Ladi
Kwali demonstrating
how she was taught
to throw pots on a
wheel by Michael Car-
dew. Abuja, Nigeria.
PHOTOGRAPH BY MICHAEL

CONNER, 1978.

confi dent with the confi dence that comes from a lifetime of devotion
to the craft . Crowning all this, her personal charm irradiates all her
art and everything she does and seems to be the epitome of the deep-
seated culture of Africa (1972:35).

Finalement, Cardew taught Kwali how to throw on a potters’
wheel (fig. 7). Her glazed stoneware pots now in museum and
private collections stand as an odd hybrid of African creativity
and European intervention.

Th e role of creativity within the traditional context of an indi-
vidual artist’s work was the focus of Robert Farris Th ompson’s
eloquent study of the Yoruba potter Àbátàn Odefunke Ayinke
Ija. Il écrit:

I hope to demonstrate that two aspects of art, tradition and innova-
tion, normally held to be antithetical, form in her works a dynamic
unity, c'est, her art is embedded in culture and yet is autonomous.
Th e problem of the expression of her individuality is perceived in
temps. Artistic development happens when an individual, aft er the
mastery of the skills of his métier, surmounts this basic competence
with continuous self criticism and change. In a world of non literate
conservative bent, these innovations are perforce discreet, so as not
to disturb a necessary illusion of the continuity of ethical truths in
their abstract purity (1969:121–2).

Th e existence of multiple examples of Àbátàn’s work along with
pieces created by other potters within the same context allows
Th ompson the unusual opportunity to assess the creative range
of the artist’s work and change over time within her oeuvre. As he
himself notes, cependant, “artistic biography depends on more than
a few isolated samples just as a fi lm cannot be considered where
but two or three frames of the print survives” (ibid., p. 123).

Artistic biography is the focus of Barbara Th ompson’s essay.
She was engaged in doctoral research on Tanzanian healing prac-
tices when she encountered the potter Namsifueli Nyeki and her
work in the market. In her essay, she describes how she became
aware of the innovative way in which Nyeki adopted and trans-
formed various traditional pottery forms, and how her friend-
ship with this extraordinary woman ultimately came full circle
to connect with her research on traditional healers.

Our solicitation of Gary Van Wyk’s interview with South Afri-
can potter, Clive Sithole, for this volume refl ects our concern for
how scant information is on contemporary ceramic artists from
Africa.12 Th e interview opens a window into a particular artist’s
inspiration, his curiosity and passion for the medium of clay, et
his self-conscious respect for both tradition and innovation.

In sum, the essays included in this issue bring attention to
a fi eld of study that is rich with potential, off ering a range of
approaches as models for future research. We end our introduc-
tion not with answers, but with questions. What as yet unknown
relationships might be realized through the documenting and
mapping of existing ceramic traditions? To what extent can we
reconstruct the histories of vessels and of the potters who made
eux? Where do pots fi t within changing symbolic systems of
belief? Do they continue to embody myths and metaphors of the
past? Do they remain no more or less important than their pre-
decessors, do they take on a greater role in embodying memory
in the decline or absence of fi gurative sculpture (on shrines, pour
example), or have their ritual associations become obsolete? Dans

SPRING 2007 arts africains | 15

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a given cultural context, what is the nature of the relationship
between ceramic arts and other expressive art forms such as body
ornamentation, performance, and displays of status within the
home? Where do the ceramic arts fi t within the broader visual
culture of contemporary life in Africa? What might we learn
from knowing more of the life histories of individual potters, de
variations in apprenticeship and learning patterns, of attitudes
towards creativity and innovation? Within diff ering cultural sys-
tems what motivates exceptional potters? How is their artistry

received within their own community? How might we better
understand the intersection of ceramics with global markets
aujourd'hui? When and how do vessels enter these markets and with
what agency do potters engage with them? •
Kathleen Bickford Berzock is curator of African art at the Art Institute of
Chicago. kbickford@artic.edu

Barbara E. Frank is associate professor of art history at Stony Brook Uni-
versity. bfrank@notes.cc.sunysb.edu

Remarques

Sieber’s catalogue (1980) and the exhibition it

Références citées

We would like to thank Lisa Aronson, Douglas
Dawson, Kate Ezra, Adria LaViolette, and Jessica Levin
Martinez for their constructive criticism in preparing this
introduction.

1 With some exceptions, women dominate the
craft of pottery production across Africa in historically
known periods. Th e gender of potters and of the makers
of fi gurative sculpture in the archaeological past is not
known; cependant, both Berns (1993) and Frank (2002)
have suggested that we should at least recognize the
possibility that women may have played a role in the
production of archaeological ceramics.

2 Th e impetus behind this special issue was the
symposium “For Hearth and Altar: Artistry and Action
in African Ceramics,” held February 4, 2006, at the Art
Institute of Chicago in conjunction with the exhibi-
tion “For Hearth and Altar: African Ceramics from the
Keith Achepohl Collection.” Organized by Kathleen
Bickford Berzock, Marla Berns, and Barbara E. Frank,
the symposium had two foci, one on individual art-
ists and the other on ritual as a locus of meaning and
mémoire. Th e participants were Lisa Aronson, Marla
Berns, Kathleen Bickford Berzock, Silvia Forni, Barbara
Frank, Barbara Th ompson, and Gary Van Wyk. Th e
exhibition was on view at the Art Institute of Chicago
Dec. 3, 2005–February 20, 2006.

3 Th ere have been other exhibitions of African
ceramics of varying scope, among them: “Th e Potter’s
Art,” Museum of Mankind, Londres (Picton and Fagg
1970); “African Terra Cottas South of the Sahara,»
Detroit Institute of Arts, 1972; “Nupe, Kakanda, Basa-
Nge: Gefässkeramik aus Zentral-Nigeria” (Stössel
1981un) and “Keramik aus Westafrika: Einführung in
Hersterllung und Gebrauch” (Stössel 1981b), Gallerie
Biedermann and Galerie Fred Jahn, Munich; “Anthro-
pomorphic Terracotta Vessels of Zaire” (Polfl iet 1987a)
and “Traditional Zaïrian Pottery” (Polfl iet 1987b),
Galerie Fred Jahn, 1987; “Fired Brilliance: Ceramic Ves-
sels from Zaire,” University of Missouri-Kansas City
Art Gallery (Darish 1990); “African Ceramics: Ancient
and Historic Earthenware Vessels” (Dawson 1993), “Of
the Earth: Ancient and Historic African Ceramics”
(Dawson 2001) and “Th e Art of African Clay: Ancient
and Historic African Ceramics” (Dawson 2003), Doug-
las Dawson Gallery, Chicago; “Women’s Art in Africa:
Woodfi red Pottery from Iowa Collections,” University of
Iowa Art Museum, 1994; “Earthen Vessels: Central and
West African Works of Fired Clay,” Anderson Gallery,
Drake University, 1996 (Anderson Gallery 1996); “Hier
et Aujourd’hui: des Poteries et des Femmes,” Muséum
d’histoire naturelle, Genève and Musée National,
Bamako (Gallay et al. 1996); “Earthen Elegance: African
Ceramics from the Newark Museum Collection,” New-
ark Museum, 2004–05; “West African Ceramic Vessels,»
Indianapolis Museum of Art, 2006–07; and Indiana
University Art Museum’s rotating series of African
ceramics installations, 2001-présent.

16 | african arts SPRING 2007

accompanied were also pivotal for presenting ceramics
and other utilitarian forms as aesthetic objects in their
own right.

5 Mali’s Inland Niger Delta is perhaps the most
richly treated in this fashion. Zulu pottery, from South
Africa, is also beginning to attain a critical mass of studies.
For instance Frank 1994, 1998; Roy 1989, 2000un,
2000b, 2003; and Schneider 1986, 1990, 1993, 1997. C'est
interesting to note that in many instances studies from
the 1970s or before remain the standard in their area.
Notable examples include Dias 1961, Lawton 1967, Trow-
ell and Wachsmann 1953, and Waane 1976.

In his detailed and illuminating analysis of the

African art market, Christopher Steiner (1994) discusses
the role of art traders as cultural brokers who benefi t
from maintaining the separation between the sellers
and buyers.

Forni also discussed Fombah in her paper

“Improving Tradition Th rough Innovation: Mar-
tin Fombah and the Contemporary Potters of Nsei”
presented at the Art Institue of Chicago symposium
“For Hearth and Altar: Artistry and Action in African
Ceramics,” February 4, 2006.

9 Koloss’s defi nitive consideration of the chiefdom

of Oku (2000), with its numerous photographs and
descriptions of ritual, is also a valuable record of pottery
utiliser. Gebauer (1979) suggests the complexity of intercon-
nections among the arts of the closely related cultures in
Western Cameroon.

10 Some of the techniques identifi ed include
pounding in concave mold: Sonrai, Dogon (Tireli),
Dogon (Ka-In Ouro); pounding in concave mold and
molding over convex mold: Peul, northern Bamana;
pounding and modeling in concave mold: north-
ern Somono; modeling over convex mold: southern
Bamana, Dogon (Modjodje), Dogon (Sarnyere); model-
ing in concave mold: southern Somono; and pounding
out a lump: Bobo, and Dogon (Niongono)

11 Similar sustained collaborative ethnoarchaeologi-
cal research has been undertaken in the Mandara region
of Cameroon under the direction of Nicholas David and
Judith Sterner from the University of Calgary in the 1980s
and 1990s (David and Sterner 1987, 1989, 1998), and by
Olivier Gosselain, Alexandre Livingstone Smith, et
their colleagues in northern Cameroon on the Ceramic
and Society Project 1994–99 under the direction of
Pierre de Maret at the University of Brussels (Gosselain
et autres 1996; see also Gosselain 1998, 1999, 2000). Impor-
tant individual ethnoarchaeological studies have also
been done in Senegal (Guèye 1997–1998, Sall 2000-2001).
12 Magdalene Odundo remains the perhaps the only
artist of African origin whose name is widely associated
with contemporary ceramic arts (Berns 1995). Th ere is
also some information on El Anatsui’s early work in clay
(Oguibé 1998), although he is much better known for
his more recent signature works in wood and multime-
dia. Ethiopian artist Etyié Dimma Poulsen is known as a
sculptor rather than a ceramic artist per se, even though
her primary medium is clay (see Harney 2003).

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_______. 1999. “In Pots We Trust: Th e Processing of
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