Tambo

Melvin Edwards, Tambo, 1993, welded steel, 28 ¹⁄₈ x 25 ¹⁄₄ x 22 in. (71.5 x 64.2 x 55.9 cm.), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment and the Smithsonian Institution Collections Acquisition Program, 1994.55, © 1993, Melvin Edwards

Artwork Details

Title: Tambo
Artist: Melvin Edwards
Date: 1993
Location: Smithsonian American Art Museum
/
3rd Floor
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North Wing
Dimensions: 28 ¹⁄₈ x 25 ¹⁄₄ x 22 in. (71.5 x 64.2 x 55.9 cm.)
Copyright: © 1993, Melvin Edwards
Credit Line: Museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment and the Smithsonian Institution Collections Acquisition Program
Mediums: steel
Mediums Description: welded steel
Classifications: Sculpture
Assemblage
Subjects: Abstract — geometric
Object — tool — shovel
Object — weapon — spear
Object — tool — wrench
Object Number: 1994.55
Linked Open Data: https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/1994.55

Artwork Description

Edwards created Tambo in 1993 to commemorate Oliver Tambo, the president of the African National Congress, who, with Nelson Mandela, transformed the ANC in the mid-1940s into an activist organization that called on South Africa’s black population to engage in nonviolent forms of civil disobedience against apartheid laws. Tambo is a sculpture of allusion and history, an assemblage of steel implements that speak to their original industrial origins, and to metaphorical possibilities. The I-beam fragments and wrenches allude to Tambo’s efforts to repair society; the shovel and spear symbolically honor the son of peasant farmers who devoted his life to securing equality for South Africa’s black residents.

African American Art: Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights Era, and Beyond, 2012