Yoruba Housepost by Areogun of Osi-Ilorin, Ekiti, Nigeria

Harry Franklin, Los Angeles
Valerie Franklin, Los Angeles, by descent from the above
Edwin and Cherie Silver, Los Angeles, acquired from the above on April 20, 1989

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Mother and Child in African Sculpture, December 5, 1985 - July 6, 1986
Fowler Museum of Cultural History, Los Angeles, Imaging Women in African Art: Selected Sculptures From Los Angeles Collections, November 12, 2000 - May 13, 2001

Cole, the Mother and Child in African Sculpture, 1986, fig. 26
Mary Nooter Roberts and Alison Saar, Body Politics: the Female Image in Luba Art and the Sculpture of Alison Saar, Los Angeles, 2000, p. 68, cat. no. 11

In Yoruba palace architecture, richly carved posts are incorporated into open-air verandas in courtyards, audience chambers, and façades, portraying elaborate stacked compositions of idealized characters of admirable virtues. Royal palaces were ambitious in scale and scope, and carvers received major commissions for such projects. These carvers often learned in family ateliers, with distinct styles developed over generations. The most distinguished individual carvers achieved great fame, such as the sculptor of this post, Areogun.

Areogun hailed from the village of Osi in the Ekiti region of northeastern Nigeria. Together with his contemporary, Olowe of Ise, Areogun is considered one of the great Yoruba artists, and his talent earned him commissions across the northern Ekiti region. His artistic talent is reflected in his name; born Dada, he earned the "praise name'"Areogun, a shortening of "areogunbunna", meaning "one who gets money with the tools of Ogun and spends it liberally" (Carroll, Yoruba Religious Carving: Pagan and Christian Sculpture in Nigeria & Dahomey, London, 1967, p. 79). Ogun is the Yoruba deity of iron and of those who use iron tools, such as blacksmiths, warriors, hunters, and carvers.