Among the Kuba people, the appliqué designs created abstract geometric shapes. The textiles were worn as skirts wrapped around their hips for ceremonial dances.
The warm harmonies of color tones turn these fabrics into abstract works of art. These richly decorated cloths took a considerable amount of time to create, as they were hand-woven, stitched & dyed. Due to the fact that they were labor-intensive to create, they are highly prized by collectors. The men would weave panels on a loom, while the women decorated the cloth with an endless variety of applied decorative geometric patterns. The overall designs were either symmetrical or asymmetrical. The development of new patterns was a prominent feature of Kuba kingship. Every king was expected to invent a new cloth pattern at the beginning of his reign. Natural pigments were used to create the dyes for coloring.
Modern artists such as Matisse, Paul Klee and Braque were influenced & incorporated African designs into their works. In fact Matisse hung these cloths adorning the walls of his studio next to his own painted paper cut-outs. Matisse said “I never tire of looking at them - and waiting for something to come to me from the mystery of their instinctive geometry”.
They make for great decorative wall-hangings both horizontal or vertical, table runners, and even pillow covers (the stitched seams can be carefully undone to create multiple cloths).
12'3" x 33"
