Indigenous Arts of Africa

Reception: Sunday, September 22, 2:00-3:30 pm, Hershberger Gallery.

This exhibition of 20th-century African art is a sampling of the extensive collection of Ann and Keith Graber Miller, owners of Found international art gallery in downtown Goshen, Indiana. Culled from the Graber Millers’ travels in Kenya and Ethiopia as well as their acquisition of the West African collections of several others, the show includes masks from Mali, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, and elsewhere ; a beaded chieftan’s coat from Nigeria; antique woven vegetal and leather baskets from the Orono people of Ethiopia ; fabrics from Ghana and Congo ; a bronze judgment chair and other bronze statues from Cameroon and Benin ; stone Shona sculptures from Zimbabwe ; and Ethiopian Orthodox icons. A combination of ceremonial objects as well as artifacts from daily life, many of the pieces were inspired by high religious feeling and linked to ancestor worship. For the viewer, Indigenous Arts of Africa will inspire a sense of spirituality, curiosity, and mystery.