c.1940 This ceremonial mask was created by an unknown Senufo artist from the Ivory Coast. It depicts an abstracted human face with horns and other protrusions. The wood is dark.

13" x 7" x 4 1/2" mask

The Senufo people are a West African ethnolinguistic group. They consist of diverse subgroups living in a region spanning the northern Ivory Coast, the southeastern Mali and the western Burkina Faso. The Senufo are regionally famous as musicians and superb carvers of wood sculpture, masks and figurines. The Senufo people have specialized their art and handicraft work by subgroups, wherein the art is learnt within this group from one generation to the next.

The art of Senufo people inspired 20th-century European artists such as Pablo Picasso and Fernand Léger. The cubism and masks found in Senufo pieces were a part of Pablo Picasso's African period. The term Senufo has become a category to art collectors and scholars, a symbolism for the artistic traditions of West Africa, starting with the early twentieth century. Old pieces of Senufo art are found in many leading museums of the world.