- Feral Benga (Benga: Dance Figure)
attached marble base: 1 1/4 × 6 in. diameter (3.2 × 15.2 cm)
Explore Further
A
native of Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, Richmond Barthé left the south to study
at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1924. He moved to New York in 1929, where he
quickly became one of the foremost artists of the Harlem Renaissance.
Feral Benga portrays
François (a.k.a. Feral) Benga, a Senegalese cabaret dancer who Barthé saw
perform in Paris in 1934. He began modeling the sculpture immediately after his
return to New York, rendering the figure with an Art Deco sinuousness that
captures the dancer’s grace and deliberate exoticism. The art historian James A. Porter wrote
admiringly of Barthé in 1943: “[His works] are so close to perfection of
statement that their effect on the spectator is transporting. Never
elsewhere has the sculptor better suited means to mood or pose to action.”
ProvenanceOriginal owner: Armando Solis
from thence to the Stella Jones Gallery, New Orleans
Exhibition History"African-American Advisory Association (Five-A)" at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, March 2 to April 7, 2003.
"African-American Art in the Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston", The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, February 22, 2004 - May 9, 2004.
"Houston Collects: African American Art," The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Upper Brown Pavilion, July 31-October 26, 2008.
"American Made: 250 Years of American Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston," The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 7 July 2012 - 2 January 2013.
"Statements: African American Art from the Museum's Collection," The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Millennium Gallery, January 24–September 25, 2016.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Cataloguing data may change with further research.
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