Face mask (polychrome wood)

The striking contrast between the painted divisions and the underlying carved wood form is an aspect of African art that first entranced Western audiences. The Western lack of awareness of the forms and contexts of African art was such that when this face mask was exhibited in the 1950s in France, it was identified as coming from another part of Africa. Later research attributed this mask, from the Walt Disney–Tishman African Art Collection, to the Tsogo peoples of Gabon as part of a wider regional tradition of masks sharing this distinctive painted style.