Exhibitions: Ethiopean Arts (Paula LeCler Collection)

July 27, 1936: An Exhibition of Ethiopian Crafts has recently been installed in a special exhibition gallery of the African Hall on the main floor of the Brooklyn Museum where it will remain throughout the summer.

The material comes from the collection of Miss Paula Lecler, a noted free lance war and foreign correspondent who spent six months in Ethiopia during the recent war doing straight news reporting for the Associated Press and feature cables for Universal Service and Continental Newspapers. Miss Lecher was exceptionally fortunate in that she not only interviewed Haile Selassie four times but also secured the first interview ever obtained with the Empress Menen. Moreover, she had the opportunity to talk to. native officers and warriors of Haile Selassie while visiting the North battlefront as well as to a large number of nationals engaged in educational, missionary and hospital work.

Through her wide experiences and many contacts she was able to get a splendid picture of Ethiopian customs and manners, and the collection now on display shows the objects used in everyday life by the people she visited and interviewed.

In this exhibition the paintings are perhaps the most interesting, although less accomplished from the standpoint of craftsmanship than the metal work. The drawing is crude and rather stylized, the colors bold and not harmonious to the unaccustomed eye. They are executed on cloth and occasionally on parchment with opaque oil colors in brilliant dye tones. The subjects are usually religious in nature, and the figures of saints and the Virgin Mother are very reminiscent of Byzantine prototypes. A painting of particular interest deals with the legendary founding of the royal house of Ethiopia, which claims direct descent from King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Another shows various craftsmen at work in a series of colorful and amusing scenes.

The silver jewelry on exhibition shows a distinct Arabic influence in its complicated interlocking strapwork. Several elaborate and beautiful crosses of the kind carried by priests in ceremonial processions are shown, as well as various smaller and cruder crosses that are worn about the neck. Bracelets and necklaces in both gold and silver, Ethiopian coins (one of them fixed to be worn about the neck as a protective charm) and two silver trays with bone rims are also included. The intricate metal work on the velvet shield and scabbard that were given to Miss Locler by Raz Dejazmach Nassibu, one of Haile Selassie’s most able generals, is an excellent simple of the native craftsman’s skill and love of ornament.

Other objects that are exhibited are rugs, one made of the skins of fourteen monkeys, the other of the pelt of a large lioness; many varieties of the colorful basketry made by Ethiopian peasants for use in their primitive life; goblets and spoons of rhinoceros horn; school books in Aramaic script, one of them written on goatskin; and carved and painted wooden bowls and containers in which food is kept.

Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Department of Public Information. Press releases, 1931 - 1936. 07-09_1936, 106-7. View Original 1 . View Original 2