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Standing on Ceremony: Traditional African Arms from the Donna and Robert Jackson Collection and the Cleveland Museum of Art

The History Museum, The Library, and the Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum are located at:
10825 East Boulevard, Cleveland, Ohio 44106.
Telephone: (216) 721-5722.

www.wrhs.org

Through November 7, 2004

Exhibit kicks off a new annual series of exhibits highlighting local collectors.Inaugurating the Western Reserve Historical Society’s new initiative of showcasing the extensive collecting traditions present in Northeast Ohio is an outstanding collection of traditional African blades from the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries assembled by prominent collectors Donna L. and Robert H. Jackson.

The new exhibition, Standing on Ceremony: Traditional African Arms from the Donna and Robert Jackson Collection and the Cleveland Museum of Art, is open through November 7, 2004 at the Western Reserve Historical Society in Cleveland’s University Circle. Inaugurating the Western Reserve Historical Society’s new initiative of showcasing the extensive collecting traditions present in Northeast Ohio is an outstanding collection of traditional African blades from the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries assembled by prominent collectors Donna L. and Robert H. Jackson. The Cleveland Collectors series will feature a different collector each spring/summer.

Inveterate travelers with multiple collections and long interested in non-Western cultures, the Jacksons assembled an impressive group of African hand-forged iron knives which have long been prized for their craftsmanship, bold minimal shapes symbolic of animal and human forms, and highly original designs. The Jackson collection features prime examples of the ceremonial knives, combat sabres, throwing knives, daggers, dignitary swords, and currency knives produced by sub-Saharan African peoples noted for their outstanding work as smiths: the Zande, Ngombe, Mangbetu, Ngbaka, Momvu, Teke, Ngala, Kuba, Ekonda, and Ngbandi, among others. This exhibition will provide an opportunity to examine the importance of metal and its connection with varying degrees of hierarchy within African society, as well as the role of the smith, who as a result of his knowledge of transforming inert material with fire, held a position of immense respect within African society.

The exhibition will also draw upon another important local collection of African arms, from the permanent collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA). Seldom on view, many of the Museum’s African knives date from the 19^th century and retain their original scabbards, which are quite rare owing to the fragile nature of animal hides from which they are constructed. The CMA acquired many of its African arms in the early 1910s—making them among the earliest objects to have entered the Museum’s permanent collection. In the late 1920s, the Museum’s collection of African blades expanded when the Gilpin Players and the African American Sponsors, two predominantly African American groups associated with Cleveland’s interracial settlement house Karamu, donated a large collection of African objects. Among these were Mangbetu sickle knives, which had been acquired in Africa by the Cleveland artist Paul Travis in 1927-28. Through the generosity of Travis’ daughter and son-in-law, Elisabeth and Michael Dreyfuss, some of the African knives and spears which he acquired for his own collection will also be on view, together with important loans from private collectors in New York, Seattle and Dayton.

Art historian Marianne Berardi is serving as guest curator for Standing on Ceremony: Traditional African Arms from the Donna and Robert Jackson Collection and the Cleveland Museum of Art. Berardi earned her Ph.D. in art history from the University of Pittsburgh. Prior to serving for three years as Director of the Cleveland Artists Foundation, she headed the painting department at ewolfs.com Fine Art Auctioneers. From 1990 to 1994 she served as Director/Curator of The Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art in St. Joseph, Missouri, and has taught art history at the University of Pittsburgh, the Kansas City Art Institute, and John Carroll University in Cleveland.

This fall, WRHS offers a series of lectures in connection with the exhibit, Standing on Ceremony: Traditional African Arms from the collection of Donna and Robert Jackson and the Cleveland Museum of Art. The series features presenters known nationally and internationally for their expertise in the areas of African tribal art, collecting and curating private collections. Be sure to check out www.wrhs.org for more information. Support for this exhibit provided by Bank One, Call & Post and 107.3 FM The Wave.

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