<I>Ghana Women Dancing</I>
date: label: Date
content: 1968
name: label: Created by
content: John Biggers, American, 1924 - 2001
notes: label: Caption
content: John Biggers was one of the first African American artists to travel to Africa to study different cultural traditions and practices. He went to the continent in 1957, where he spent six months in West Africa on a UNESCO fellowship. His exposure to various elements of visual arts and culture during this period had a profound and lasting effect on his work, and he considered this trip to be the most significant event of his life.
label: Caption
content: Ghana Women Dancing reflects Biggers’s ongoing interest in depicting African and African American dance traditions. Painted 11 years after his UNESCO trip, it may reference an occasion when the artist witnessed a community ceremony celebrating the successful harvest of the year’s crops, in which dance played an important role.
label: Description
content: This is an oil painting of two dancing women. The women wear duku head ties, blouses, and floor-length skirts. The figure on the left has a skirt that wraps around her, with abstract color patterns in yellow and red tones. She wears a blue sleeveless blouse with a white pattern and an off-white head tie with yellow and red highlights. The woman stands with her body facing the viewer, head bent towards her left and bending forward from the waist. The woman next to her stands with her back to the viewer, wearing an off-white wrap skirt and blue short sleeve blouse with light blue pattern. She bends forward slightly from the waist, her left foot visible beneath her skirt. Behind them is a large green moon against a dark blue sky with white stars and constellations in the background.
place: label: Place made
content: Houston, Harris County, Texas, United States, North and Central America
label: Cultural Place
content: Ghana, West Africa, Africa
topic: label: Topic
content: African American
label: Topic
content: Africa
label: Topic
content: African diaspora
label: Topic
content: Art
label: Topic
content: Dance
label: Topic
content: Women
setName: label: See more items in
content: National Museum of African American History and Culture Collection
label: Classification
content: Visual Arts
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Gerald and Anita Smith
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of African American History and Culture
identifier: label: Object number
content: 2012.162.1
objectType: label: Type
content: oil paintings
objectRights: label: Restrictions & Rights
content: © Artists Rights Society
label: Restrictions & Rights
content: Permission required for use. Proper usage is the responsibility of the user.
physicalDescription: label: Medium
content: oil and acrylic paint and chalk on canvas
label: Dimensions
content: H x W x D (frame): 43 1/8 × 37 1/16 × 1 9/16 in. (109.5 × 94.2 × 4 cm)
label: Dimensions
content: H x W (unframed): 35 15/16 × 29 15/16 in. (91.3 × 76 cm)