Somuk

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Somuk , also Hermano Somuk (born around 1900; died 1965), was a clan chief , fisherman , storyteller and painter on Bougainville , the largest island in an autonomous region of Papua New Guinea . He was a political figure in the South Seas , is considered the first modern painter in the Pacific region and was chosen post mortem as a demiurge .

life and work

Somuk lived in Gagan, a village in northern Bougainville. Father Patrick O'Reilly (1900–1988), a Marist Fathers , missionary and ethnographer who worked with the Musée de l'Homme in Paris, reported on his charismatic personality. He motivated Somuk to draw and paint. O'Reilly "puts ink, crayons and pencils with paper into his hand and lets him not only tell rites, myths and legends, as is customary in the oral culture of the Solomon Islands archipelago, but depict them figuratively." In the post-war period, Somuk caught the attention of the Parisian intelligentsia. After that he was forgotten outside of his home country. He died in 1965. After his death, he obtained the status of a demiurge in his home village .

Somuk's work influenced Jean Dubuffet .

The Musée du quai Branly in Paris , the French national museum for non-European art, acquired a photo album created by Father O'Reilly in the 2010s. It enabled the museum to show Somuk's drawings in the context in which they were created, his inspirations and the various interpretations of the Western world in an exhibition form.

Retrospective

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bettina Wohlfarth : Between Ethnography and Art brut , Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , February 7, 2020, p. 11
  2. ↑ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung : Between Ethnography and Art brut , p. 2, accessed April 9, 2020
  3. ↑ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: Between Ethnography and Art brut , p. 1, accessed April 9, 2020
  4. ↑ Somuk: Premier Artiste Moderne Du Pacifique , accessed April 9, 2020
personal data
SURNAME Somuk
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Somuk, Hermano
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Clan chief, fisherman, storyteller and painter
DATE OF BIRTH around 1900
DATE OF DEATH 1965