Amelie A. Wallace Gallery, SUNY Old Westbury

September 16 – October 11, 2024

Opening Reception: Thursday, September 26, 4 – 7 pm (Amelie A. Wallace Gallery)

Collector’s Talk: September 26, 4pm – 4:45 pm (Duane L. Jones Recital Hall)

Old Westbury, NY — Amelie A. Wallace Gallery and Old Westbury College Foundation of SUNY Old Westbury are pleased to announce African Art and Its Historic Value Systems in Educating a People, an exhibition of African sculptures selected from the Cultural Museum of African Art–The Eric Edwards Collection (CMAAEEC). Over the course of half a century, Mr. Edwards has amassed more than 3,000 carefully selected African artifacts representing all fifty-four nations of the African continent. It is one of the most significant collections of African Art in the United States and the world. In November 2023, the Museum opened to the public in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, where Mr. Edwards was born and raised.

For this exhibition at Amelie A. Wallace Gallery, sixteen African sculptures from Sierra Leone, Angola, Gabon, Congo, Cameroon, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Guinea, and Mali will be showcased. These artifacts were produced between the 16th and early 20th centuries. They were utilized for teaching youth, often by secret societies that initiated young boys in ceremonies as they became young men responsible for their families and society. In this exhibition, a Mende Bundu Sande helmet from Sierra Leone, that was used for the female “Sande Secret Society,” is included as an example representing a unique masking tradition exclusively worn by women. Another highlight of the exhibition is an early 19th century Songye Power Figure from a shrine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Made of wood, antelope hone, fabric, and a bell, it is a well-preserved example of the power of the community guardian, imbued with spiritually-charged materials.

Eric’s father, James Edwards, who immigrated to the US from Barbados at the age of seventeen, taught his children the importance of learning the origins of their culture, which was not taught in NYC schools. Invigorated and inspired by his father’s teaching, Eric would often visit the Brooklyn Museum and Metropolitan Museum of Art. Eric attended Brooklyn Tech High School and City University of New York, becoming an electrical engineer working for AT&T and 3Com Corporation, among others. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from Medgar Evers College. He began collecting music records at the age of twelve, amassing over 40,000 records from all genres of music, and built his own stereo system and color TV from scratch. His collecting history of African art began in the early 1970s with a modest purchase—an exquisite Senufo-Bambara maternity statue from Mali, acquired for $300. This seemingly simple act would ignite a lifelong passion, leading to the creation of an impressive collection of African Art.

These artifacts tell the story of African diasporic emigrations and their contributions to the evolution of man and womankind throughout the world. Mr. Edwards’s creation of CMAA completes the story of African American history beyond a mere 400 years of slavery to encompass more than four thousand years of human history. Mr. Edwards has also created a comprehensive educational curriculum to tell the history and to give voice to each piece, telling why it was created and explaining its value and significance to the people who created it. Mr. Edwards’s aim is to inspire all people, but most especially youth of African origin.

The exhibition is sponsored by the Old Westbury College Foundation and Wallace Endowment Fund. The Gallery Director thanks Mr. Eric Edwards for loaning his invaluable collection, Mr. Eddie Gajadar, Strategic Project Manager of CMAAEEC, and Angela Wambugu Cobb, Vice President for Institutional Advancement and Executive Director of the Old Westbury College Foundation for co-organizing effort. We also thank Penny Chin, Director of Alumni Affairs, and Pritpal Kainth, Administrative Assistant of Old Westbury Foundation, for additional administrative assistance, as well as Jong-Il Ma of Mia Fine Art Work for building vitrines for the exhibition.