A Bembe Male Figure, Republic of the Congo

rising from a squared platform, the male figure with bent legs, straight torso, bearing scarification, holding a calabash in his left and a knife in his right hand, surmounted by an ovoid head with delicate features, with beard and inset porcelain eyes; aged light brown surface with highlights in dark pigment.

Félix Fénéon, Paris
Gordon B. Washburn, New York
Given to the Albright Art Gallery by the above on April 27, 1932

Andrew C. Ritchie (ed.), Albright Art Gallery, Catalogue of the Paintings and Sculptures in the Permanent Collection, 1, Buffalo, 1949, cat. 199, p. 211
Steven A. Nash et al. (ed.), Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Painting and Sculpture from Antiquity to 1942, Buffalo, 1979, p. 127

Félix Fénéon (1861-1944) was a leading art critic, journalist and editor in Paris during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Mainly publishing in magazines -- he was the founder of  "La Revue indépendante" (1884) and a staff writer of "La Vogue", among other publications -- he coined the term "Neo-impressionism" in 1886 to identify a group of artists, led by Georges Seurat, which he ardently promoted. Jean Paulhan's 1943 essay Félix Fénéon ou le critique, published shortly before Fénéon's death, established the "myth Fénéon" in portraying him as the ideal critic who was always right and the first to recognize both the importance of the Impressionist painters and the significance of Rimbaud and Apollinaire as the two preeminent poets of their time.