Alexander "Skunder" Boghossian, (Ethiopian, 1937-2003)

The Jugglers 19 1/8 x 25in (48.5 x 63.5cm)

The Jugglers
signed and dated 'SKUNDER 62' (lower right)
oil on canvas
19 1/8 x 25in (48.5 x 63.5cm)

Provenance
The collection of the artist's family.

The South African artist Gerard Sekoto, whom Skunder had befriended in Paris, introduced him to the great Cuban painter Wilfredo Lam in 1959 at the Second International Congress of Negro Writers in Rome. According to Skunder's friend Solomon Deressa who also lived in Paris during the 1950s and 60s, Skunder was particularly inspired by Lam's representation of mysterious and primordial totemic images.

Indeed, influences from the compositions of Lam encompasses the imagery of The Jugglers. Painted in 1962, The Jugglers seems to also recollect Mengistu Neway, the commander of the Imperial Bodyguard who attempted a coup against Emperor Haile Selassie's government in 1960. Mengistu Neway's courage and defiance had impressed Skunder. And perhaps The Jugglers is a reflection of failed attempts for justice.

Beyond the background of symbols and signs, intriguing and disturbing visible images emerge; an adorned horse with a nefarious spirit on its head, a white bird, a comparable figure to an Akan fertility spirit and a figure sheathed with what seems like rifles, holding the globe with its wicked hand. The colors are somber but the themes are strikingly detailed. Perhaps the decorated horse characterizes a political leader who is always beautified and bejeweled but who is also constantly in tension with competing forces who are there to extinguish the darkness and gloom of injustice.

We are grateful to Professor Elizabeth Giorgis for her compilation of the above footnote.