Power Figures: A Joint Exhibition with Carlo Bella

Colnaghi New York is delighted to announce Power Figures, a joint exhibition with Carlo Bella, opening on 27 May and running until 6 June 2025. The presentation will feature museum-quality historical African and Native American artworks alongside Old Master paintings and works from Greco-Roman antiquity.

Taking its title from the term “Power Figure,” used in African art to describe ancestral statues and reliquaries that served as instruments of protection, healing, and justice within tribal communities, the exhibition explores artworks as sites of memory, legacy, and ritual. Power Figures seeks to create dialogues between artistic traditions that illuminate the significance of human representation in the formation and preservation of cultural identity.

Carlo Bella will present twenty important works of African and Native American art. Among the highlights is a monumental fetish figure from the Songye culture, formerly part of the collection of New York art dealer Allan Stone.

Colnaghi will present a selection of European portrait paintings and Classical antiquities. A major highlight of the exhibition is the imposing life-sized Portrait of a Noblewoman by Giovanni Battista Caracciolo (Naples, 1578 – 1635 Naples), one of the leading Neapolitan Caravaggisti. Presented in America for the first time, the painting is currently the only known attributed full-length portrait by the artist.

Power Figures will be on view at Colnaghi New York from 27 May to 6 June 2025, with previews available by appointment beginning on 20 May.