Yinka Shonibare MBE (b. 1962, London, England), Cowboy Angels IV, 2017, From a series of five woodcuts with fabric collage in wooden portfolio box bound in Dutch wax batik fabric, selected by the artist and accompanied by a colophon page, 37 1/5 × 27 3/5 in, Museum purchase, Erna Bottigheimer Sands (Class of 1929) Art Acquisition 2018.59.1-.7

The Davis Museum recently purchased a portfolio of five woodcuts by the renowned artist Yinka Shonibare. Born in London and raised in Lagos, Shonibare works across many media to explore how a contemporary, globalized world continues to live with the inheritances of colonialism. In these woodcuts with fabric collage, he combines Christian imagery of angels, representations of African masks, cowboy tropes of the American West, and a windswept treatment of waxprint fabrics. Each prints contains a cowboy—recognizable by his posture and dress—with angel wings and a face substituted by a canonical type of African mask. On each print, the artist has written “Angel.” Shonibare has also added swatches of waxprint fabric and printed paper to create an abstracted background on the polychrome woodcut prints. This portfolio reflects the breadth of Shonibare’s oeuvre in medium and themes, particularly addressing his current theme of immigration and xenophobia in Europe and North America. Not only does this portfolio build on the Davis’s strong collections of global contemporary art and prints, but it also accompanies Shonibare’s 2006 sculpture How to Blow Up Two Heads at Once (Ladies) already in the collection. Both Shonibare’s sculpture and print portfolio will be on view at the Davis in Spring 2019.