“White Fence” is one of many pieces revisiting a visual motif of strong vertical lines in parallel. The organizational strategy recurred throughout his adult life, inspired both by natural phenomena (birch forests of Maine, for example) as well as cultural practices he observed while abroad in both Africa and South America. Julie McGee refl ects on such pieces—

“In Brazil, Yoruba cultural infl uences are manifest in Can-domble and Macumba religious practices. Driskell recognized the Yoruba traditions, trans plants from West Africa, which enslaved Yoruba brought to the New World sometime be-tween 1600 and 1800. Yoruba Posts (1983), in the Baltimore Museum of Art, and an earlier Yoruba Posts (1981), in a pri-vate collection, suggest by title the carved veranda posts that Driskell would certainly have seen at the palace in lkere-Ek-iti, Nigeria. The paral lel vertical collage elements recall the forceful upright geometry of the elaborate veranda posts.

The aesthetic power of the Yoruba masking rituals of Gelede and Egungun resonate in Yoruba Posts (1983), Festival, Bahia (1985), and Bahian Lace (1988). In both masking traditions, dancers wear elaborate costumes of layered cloth strips. ln addition to a mask, the Gelede costume often includes baby sashes, multicolored female head wraps, and layers of appliqued sashes. In the Egungun masquerade, a cloth costume is the pri mary adornment. It too is called egungun, which means “powers concealed.” The costume consists of layer upon layer of cloth, often narrow strips, some appliqued. These layers, which typically conceal the dancer wearing the costume, convey prestige, wealth, and ancestral power. Each year, new layers are added to the egungun, and with the dancer’s movement, the layers fl are outward, upward, and in undulating motions, simultaneously concealing and revealing the costume’s detail and color. The egungun symbolizes the interconnected ness of family, living and deceased.