Kalaw Lagaw Ya and Torres Strait
Mask (Mawa)
Torres Strait, Saibai Island, 1849-1874
Scroll
Physical Qualities
Wood, shell, plant fiber, pigment, H. 21 in. (53.4 cm.)
Credit Line
Gift of Alan Wurtzburger
Object Number
1955.251.100
The artists who created the black-faced Mawa mask from Sabai Island and the white-faced Kosa:ya mask [1955.251.105] from the Aramia River region of Papua New Guinea were separated by 120 miles of land and water. Nevertheless, the works have much in common. Both represent ancestral male leaders. Both have relatively flat faces with pronounced noses. And both were worn by dancers during ceremonies celebrating the harvest. Native Papuans have always interacted with the islands that surround them, and these sustained exchanges have impacted every aspect of life, including the arts.
The Baltimore Museum of Art by gift, 1955; Alan Wurtzburger; A.C. Stone of Leicester, New Guinea 1875.
"The Alan Wurtzburger Collection of Oceanic Art", January 7th-March 4th 1956, Baltimore Museum of Art
"The Imagination of Primitive Man" 1962, The Nelson Gallery (now the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art), Kansas City MO.
"The Imagination of Primitive Man" 1962, The Nelson Gallery (now the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art), Kansas City MO.
Douglas F. Fraser & Paul S. Wingret, "The Wurtzburger Collection of Oceanic Art" , BMA 1956 pg 31. ills. 100
Sunday Sun. Brown Section. January 8th. 1956. pg 15.
Fraser, Douglas Ferrar. "Torres Straits Sculpture: A Study in Oceanic Primitive Art." Ph.D. Diss., Columbia University, 1959: 67-68, 226, plate 34.
Coe, Ralph T. "The Imagination of Primitive Man". The Nelson Gallery and Atkins Museum Bulletin IV. 1962. pg. 61, 104.
"A tribute to Adelyn D. Breeskin" BMA News Quarterly. Vol. XXV. No. 4. Summer 1962 pg. 14.
Kevin Tervala, "Oceanic Art at The Baltimore Museum of Art," Tribal Arts Magazine 104 (Summer 2022): 106-113. Illustrated on pg. 110.
Inscribed: Label: on forehead of mask: "Paru or Mask worn during dances by the Papuans/Procured by A.C. Stone of Leicester/New Guinea/September 1875"
On View at the BMA
