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

Juju's Wedding Feast 47.5 x 47.5in (120.6 x 120.6cm)

Juju's Wedding Feast
signed and dated 'SKUNDER 64' (lower left)
mixed media on paper laid down on board
47.5 x 47.5in (120.6 x 120.6cm)

Provenance
The collection of the artist's family.

1964 was an eventful year for Skunder Boghossian. He had his first solo exhibition at the Galerie Lambert in Paris and his friend Solomon Deressa who also lived in Paris during this time reported that the Paris critics were almost unanimous in their positive appraisal. 1964 was also the year, following the Galerie Lambert exhibition, in which he married Marilyn Pryce in Tuskegee, Alabama.

His works from 1964 (JuJu's Night Flight of Dread and Delight, JuJu's Wedding, JuJu's Wedding Feast and JuJu Celebrates) not only invoked his ancestral spirits but also asserted his difference. While JuJu's Night Flight of Dread and Delight depicted the prominence of creation and destruction, JuJu's Wedding, JuJu's Wedding Feast and JuJu Celebrates not only portray Skunder's early experimentations with the 'magical scrolls', but also reference the wedding to Marilyn of that year.

The work soars with two images: one is an African sacred feminine who is elaborately adorned and who signifies the spiritual power that is embodied by women, and the other is a male figure who is immediately positioned below her. The 'magical scroll' is depicted on the right side of the work, perhaps to protect the feast from belligerent elements, while the colors, lines and shapes convey the most pleasant moods of festivity. As in most of his works from this period, the playful imagination of the iconography consists of conceptual schemes that includes the ancestral spirits of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and the West African juju.

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