Recent Acquisitions

July 26 -December 23, 2016 - This exhibition has works by two contemporary African artists each express the continent’s struggles for liberation from colonial rule. A wood relief carved with a chainsaw by El Anatsuiserves as a metaphor for the brutal division of African peoples by western powers.

In O Bebé Poeta, a 1963 painting by Mozambican artist Malangatana Valente Ngwenya, the artist depicts a child at his mother’s breast. Evocative of a Madonna and Child, the infant appears to be of both Portuguese and African heritage, the child may symbolize José Craveirinha, an important poet of mixed race who fought for his nation’s independence from Portugal.