Artwork Page for Untitled B

Details / Information for Untitled B

Untitled B

1997

Magdalene Odundo

(British, born Nairobi, Kenya, 1950)
Culture
England, born in Kenya, 20th century
Medium
terracotta
Measurements
Overall: 45.3 x 27.4 x 28.1 cm (17 13/16 x 10 13/16 x 11 1/16 in.)
Credit Line
John L. Severance Fund 1998.4
Copyright
Copyright
This artwork is known to be under copyright.
Location
Not on view
Print
?

Did You Know?

This vessel was the Cleveland Museum of Art's first acquisition of contemporary art by an African artist.

Description

Dame Odundo’s vessels represent the height of technical skill and visual inventiveness. Trained in Kenya, India, and England—where she first began working in clay—her influences span millennia and continents. These sources include ancient sculptors working in Greece’s Cyclades islands; artists liken Maria Martínez from San Ildefonso Pueblo, New Mexico; European modernists like Jean Arp and Henry Moore; and Gwari potters like Ladi Kwali. Kwali was Odundo’s primary instructor in Nigeria in 1974. Besides Kwali’s modernist works, she also adapted the shapes of historical Nupe vessels (left). This vessel’s sheen comes from its glaze and from the artist using tools to burnish (polish) its surface.

Untitled B

1997

Magdalene Odundo

(British, born Nairobi, Kenya, 1950)
England, born in Kenya, 20th century

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