York's Shona Gallery
The
Blog
Stories of the artists and peoples behind the work: the sculptors, tribes, and traditions that have shaped our collection.
The Kuba Tribe
The Kuba Kingdom, established in the 17th century in the Kasai region of present-day Democratic Republic of Congo, is one of the most celebrated art-producing civilisations in African history. At...
The Bamileke Tribe
The Bamileke are a cluster of related chiefdoms in the Western Highlands of Cameroon, a region of fertile volcanic plateaus known as the Grassfields. Each chiefdom is ruled by a...
The Baule Tribe
The Baule are an Akan people of central Côte d'Ivoire, descended from a group that migrated west from the Ashanti kingdom of present-day Ghana in the mid-18th century. Their founder,...
The Benin Kingdom
The Kingdom of Benin, centred on Benin City in present-day Nigeria, was one of the most sophisticated polities in pre-colonial Africa. At its height from the 13th to the 17th...