The Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut, presents its newest exhibition Power Incarnate: Allan Stone’s Collection of Sculpture from the Congo, opening on Saturday, May 14, 2011, and on view through September 4, 2011. The works are drawn from the Estate of Allan Stone, the noted art dealer, gallery owner, and collector who died in 2002 at the age of 74. Perhaps best known for his expertise in Abstract Expressionism, Mr. Stone’s collection of African art is an extraordinary assemblage in its own right, a decidedly personal collection and a monument to a particular artistic vision.
The prevailing region represented in the exhibition is the Congo, and a particular type, the power figure, are the largest group among these sculptures. Found in the Kongo and Songye cultures, both of which historically produced figures intended to protect their communities, these power figures, often called nkisi or nkishi, along with other conceptually related sculptures from the Congo basin are the focus of the exhibition. The works belong to a series of highly complex, charged and subtle political and cosmological institutions, broadly dating from the early twentieth century.
