DECEMBER, 1964 DECEMBER, 1964 American Society of 15 East 40Th
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DECEMBER, 1964 DECEMBER, 1964 American Society of 15 East 40th Street New York 16, N. Y. NEWSLETTERVOL. 7 NO. 3 Affiliated with the Socidt6 Africaine de Culture whose Journal is Prdsence Africaine (Paris) AMSAC Sponsors Exhibit and Lecture by Leading Ethiopian Artist At the opening Afewerk greets E. Harper Johnson, artist and illustrator, who is currently working on the book on African history being written by Professor William Leo Hansberry. Professor Hansberry, as Alewerk, was a recipient of one of the Haile Selassie I Prize Trust awards last fall. Dr. John A. Davis, President of AMSAC, is on the right. At an opening held on November 24th the works of Afewerk Tekle of Ethiopia were formally shown in New York for the first time. The AMSAC-sponsored exhibit of sixty-three of Afewerk's oils, monochromes, gouaches, pencil drawings and stamp designs remained on display at the Carnegie Endowment Building through November 29th. The 150 people who attended the opening were also able to meet the artist, who was in the United States as a participant in the State Department's Foreign Leaders Prgoram. Afewerk Tekle, at the age of 32, is one of the leading artists of Ethiopia. "When we realize how young Afewerk Tekle is," Dr. Richard Pankhurst of Haile Selassie University has said of him, "it becomes clear that the contribution of this versatile and prolific artist to Ethiopian and world art is only beginning. But already by his creative imagination and his hard work he is an example to his generation: a man of vision and a man of energy." Trained in London at the Central School of Arts and Crafts and at the Slade School in the University of London, Afewerk has combined in his paintings, sculpture,,mosaics, drawings, stamp and costume designs, what he has learned from the international movement in art as well as from the traditions of Ethiopian painting. His subject matter ranges from interpretations of Ethiopia's traditional religion and history to portrayals of contemporary events and persons in Africa and the rest of the world. Afewerk has been the recipient of a number of awards for his work. In 1959 he received Ethiopia's National Prize for painting. In 1964 he received the first Prize for Fine Arts given by the Haile Selassie I Prize Trust, one of the most important AMSAC Contributes to New Nnamdi Azikiwe Lectureship On the occasion of the sixtieth birthday of H. E. Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and Chancellor of the University of Nigeria (Nsukka), the university's Hansberry Institute of African Studies established a lectureship which will be known as "The Nnamdi Azikiwe Lectures." These lectures will be given annually by a distinguished scholar, statesman, or other specialist in the field of African affairs, in President Azikiwe with AMSAC's President, Dr. John A. Davis, and Dr. Horace Mann Bond, former President of AMSAC, in October 1961, during the celebrations for the opening of AMSAC's Lagos office. group of awards made by the Emperor. Afewerk's award cited the "versatile and disciplined artist for his outstanding paintings, drawings, landscapes, oils, and portraits which eloquently express his particular world environment, and for his contribution in being among the first to introduce contemporary techniques to Ethiopian subject matter and content." The artist's major works include murals in the Ethiopian Parliament, mosaics and murals in St. George Cathedral in Addis Ababa, and stained glass windows in the capital's Africa Hall. He recently received official commissions to do portraits of Em(continued on page 2) particular, and of contemporary international relations of the Afro-Asian states, in general. The lectureship is endowed by contributions from friends, admirers and colleagues of Dr. Azikiwe in Africa, Europe, Great Britain, the United States and the Caribbean and AMSAC was proud to be among these contributors. The Society's sentiments were best expressed in the remarks of James K. Baker, Director of African Programs, at the presentation ceremonies held at Nsukka on President Azikiwe's birthday, November 16, 1964: "The American Society of African Culture is immensely pleased to make the enclosed contribution in the amount of $1,000 to the Nnamdi Azikiwe Lecture Fund of the Hansberry Institute of African Studies. "The Society's pleasure in the establishment of this Fund is embodied in these, among other, considerations: "The respect and esteem in which the Society holds His Excellency, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, growing out of a long association with a number of the Society's officers and members dating back to His Excellency's university days in America; the high regard and respect in which the Society holds its member and distinguished African scholar, Dr. W. Leon Hansberry, for whom the Institute has been named; and, finally, the sincerest wishes of the Society's directors, officers, and members for continued excellence in the study of Africa at the University of Nigeria." AMSAC NEWSLETTER / page 1 EXHIBIT AND LECTURE (continued from page 1) peror Haile Selassie, President Senghor of Senegal and Prime Minister Banda of Malawi, and has already completed a portrait of President Nkrumah of Ghana. In addition to a number of one-man shows in Ethiopia, the artist has been exhibited in group shows in England, France, Italy, Yugoslavia and Czechoslavakia, as well as in a one-man show in the Soviet Union. On December 1st, just before he left New York to visit other major cities in the United States, Afewerk spoke about his work before an audience of some ninety people at the AMSAC offices. He began his talk by stating that "every artist, except for the non-objective artist perhaps, looks to his own heritage when he is trying to express himself. The Ethiopian artist is fortunate to have a rich cultural heritage from which to draw inspiration." Using slides to demonstrate, the artist talked about the ancient obelisks of Ethiopia, about the castles of Gondar, about African Movement (Gouache, 1963): "There are many traditional motifs from all over Africa which can provide the raw material for contemporary African artistic expression. In "African Movement" I have tried to use some of the shapes and forms of traditional African wood sculpture, masks, symbols and musical instruments, and also show the movement that is taking place in the Africa of today." Ethiopian handicrafts, and about the Coptic churches and their decorations; and he noted the recurring motifs, particularly in the art of the Coptic Church, the monolithic forms, and the simplicity and grace of line in traditional Ethiopian art, all of which had served as inspiration for his own work. "It is not enough, however," Afewerk said, "to be inspired by your own tradition. You must transcend the boundaries of your own country and know what artists in other AMSAC NEWSLETTER / page 2 works he had executed. Some of these comments are noted under the pictures of his work shown on this page. In passing, he emphasized again his eclectic approach in terms of style: "I like the subject to inspire the style, to determine whether the painting will be realistic or Studies for a Portrait of President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana (Gouache, 1963): "When I was asked by President Nkrumah to do an official portrait of him, I was scared because I knew he expected so much. But I had to do it. 1 went to Ghana and began by making preliminary pen and ink studies. I tried to express the tension between what he is and what he wants to be, his fears and his aspirations." parts of the world have done and are doing. All good art is part of the heritage of every artist. If an artist thinks of his works only as Ethiopian or West African or Japanese, then his art can serve only a limited community. My work is not purely Ethiopian but draws upon what I have learned in Europe and what I want to learn here." Then, with the help of slides again, Afewerk spoke in detail about specific Study of an Old Poet (Monochrome, 1964): "The old man is ninety-eight and one of Ethiopia'& great poets. I did this portrait of him while his son was recording his memories of Ethiopias's history in the last century. I tried to express the usefulness of his mind despite his physical weaknesses." Vision of St. John (Oil, 1958): "My first important commission after finishing my studies was to execute the interior decorations for the cathedral erected to commemorate those who had died in the famous 1896 Battle of Adowa (at which the Ethiopians defeated the invading Italians). When the Italians invaded Ethiopia again in 1935, they burned the interior of the church. Because it had such historical signicance, Emperor Haile Selassie wanted to have the cathedral rebuilt. He commissioned the son of the architect of the original structure to restore the interior and then he asked me to do the decorations. It took me two and a half years. "The Vision of St. John" was one of the studies for this work. abstract. I don't want to get myself into a stylistic yoke from which I can't get out, so I look everywhere for inspiration. Maybe when I'm sixty or seventy I'll settle down." He spoke about the many demands made on the African artist: "There is one difference between the African and the European artist today. The European artist can afford to specialize in a particular medium and allow himself the luxury of waiting to be inspired. From the African artist-and there are far too few at the moment-a great deal is demanded, so he better be technically accomplished in a variety of media as well as prepared to work hard.