The Face of Humanity
Sonja Ferlov Mancoba
Sonja Ferlov Mancoba (1911–84) created semi-abstract beings, warrior figures and masks out of clay and plaster. However, she was extremely critical of her own work, discarding many of her pieces. She even threw one of her most important works into a lake because it would not ‘behave’. She never really got involved with the commercial art market – and as a result she lived in great poverty.
Sonja Ferlov Mancoba was keenly interested in African cultures. Here she found a kind of art that expressed the sense of fellowship between people for which she herself fought. She believed in a sense of community that cut across different cultures. This vision runs through all of Ferlov Mancoba’s art and life. She sought to create art that would forge new connections between people in the materialistic, selfish world she felt she lived in.
This spring SMK features an exhibition that follows Sonja Ferlov Mancoba throughout her career, beginning in the 1930s where she was affiliated with the artists’ association Linien (The Line) and explored Surrealism alongside fellow artists such as Richard Mortensen and Ejler Bille. In 1936 she set out for Paris, where she rented a studio next to now a world-famous artist Alberto Giacometti.