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Lot 18

Frédéric Bruly Bouabré
(Ivorian, 1921-2014)
La Legend Bete - "Ivoire Sacré" 15 x 19cm (5 7/8 x 7 1/2in) each. unframed (22)

2 May 2019, 14:00 EDT
New York

US$9,000 - US$14,000

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Frédéric Bruly Bouabré (Ivorian, 1921-2014)

La Legend Bete - "Ivoire Sacré"
all numbered, dated and signed (verso) "F B Bouabre", no 1-8 dated "15-3-2008", no 9-18 dated "16-3-2008" & no 19-22 dated "17-3-2008"
wax pastel crayon with pen inscriptions
15 x 19cm (5 7/8 x 7 1/2in) each.
unframed (22)

Footnotes

Provenance
The collection of the artist's family.

While he became a legendary character, Cheik Nadro, "the one who does not forget", the Ivory Coast artist invented a universal language with an alphabet that brought him the reputation of "new Champollion". Made up of 440 monosyllabic pictograms, it constitutes the graphic representation of its vernacular language, the one of the Betes, also able to reproduce all the speech sounds of every spoken language : "The alphabet is the indisputable pillar of the human language. It is the crucible where the memory of the man lives. It is a remedy against oblivion, dreadful factor of ignorance." Translating sounds was not enough : it was also necessary to capture what he saw.

Additional information

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