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Design Coffin (Abebuam adeka or Container of Proverbs-Eagle)

Design Coffin (Abebuam adeka or Container of Proverbs-Eagle)

Eric Adjetey Anang

This vibrantly-painted and sculpted eagle is a figurative design coffin (Abebuam adeka or "container of proverbs") meant for the funeral of a royal person or chief in contemporary Ghana . Such coffins express the desires of persons taking their final journey: A musician travels in his guitar; a farmer goes in a cocoa pod; and a driver takes his last turn in a Mercedes. In the early 1950s, Seth Kane Kwei (1922–1992), a well-known carpenter in Accra, Ghana, invented design coffins, possibly inspired by the figurative palanquins, or sculpted seats, that carried royalty and chiefs in annual festivals. The artist Eric Adjetey Anang, Kwei’s grandson, revitalized the business beginning in 2005 and created this eagle coffin during his residency in the UW–Madison Art Department in the fall of 2015.
Artist
Eric Adjetey Anang
(Ghanaian, b. 1985)
Title
Design Coffin (Abebuam adeka or Container of Proverbs-Eagle)
Date
2015
Medium
Northern white pine, acrylic, foam, fabric, and metal
Dimensions
46 x 103 x 46 in. overall
Credit
J. David and Laura Seefried Horsfall Endowment Fund purchase
Accession No.
2015.41a-b
Classification
Sculpture
Geography
Ghana

Related

3 December 2015, sold by Erick Adjety Anang (Madison, WI) to the Chazen Mueum of Art

  • Rarey, Matthew Francis and Henry John Drewal. "Never at Rest: African Art at the University of Wisconsin." African Arts, vol 53, no. 4 (2020): 68-85. fig. 15

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