Sonja Ferlov also Sonja Mancoba Ferlov and Sonja Ferlov Mancoba
Yesterday (10-7-2019) I visited the Centre Pompidou in Paris where I saw a number of beautifully made and interesting exhibitions. The last one was about Sonja Ferlov als known als Sonja Ferlov Mancoba (her husband was the South African Cobra artist Ernest Mancoba).
Ferlov (1911-1984) studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris and got to know Joan Miró and Alberto Giacometti. Her works progressively acquired an anthropomorphic aspect and the figure of the mask appeared born from her fascination with non-Western art. In 1939 she met Ernest Mancoba and married him in 1942. After the birth of their son Mark (Wonga) the Mancoba Ferlov family settled in Denmark. She exhibited with the Cobra group who defended the ‘spontaneous’ method. During this period, her sculptures temporarily moved away from the image of the mask towards the geometric representation of figures and a more abstract position.
More about her, before and after the Cobra period, at the exhibition in Paris. Below an impression.
About me
In 2008 I was guest curator of the exhibition Black is beautiful. Rubens to Dumas. Important advisors: Elizabeth McGrath (Rubens and colleagues, Warburg institute Image of the Black in Western Art collection), Carl Haarnack (slavery in books), Elmer Kolfin (slavery in prints and paintings) en Adi Martis (contemporary art). Gary Schwartz made his research for The Image of the Black in Western Art available to me.
In 2013 my book Cobra aan de gracht / Cobra on the Canal, ( CoBrA artists in a private collection) was published by Samsara publications.
In 2014 my essay ‘Painted Blacks and Radical Imagery in the Netherlands (1900-1940)’ was published in The Image of the Black in Western Art Volume V (I). (ed. David Bindman, Henry Louis Gates jr.)
In 2017 I published a book about the black servants at the Court of the Royal Van Oranje family. More than a thousand documents have been found about their lives. (only in Dutch)
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Esther Schreuder 