Ldamie is a member of the Dan, and lived in Nimba County of Northeast Liberia. He was an extraordinary brass-caster, whose work is best known for its figures of men and women engaged in daily activities. Among them are young women carrying water, winnowing rice, grinding rice, and cutting brush or crops; musicians playing percussion or pipes; acrobats of the Snake Society; and women, arms outstretched, wearing leopard tooth necklaces.
Men in standing position, a very common theme, are generally depicted wearing a belt and a hat, and very little else.
Ldamie was well known by the village chiefs and governmental officials of Liberia; as well as the diplomats, bankers, doctors and anthropologists who came to Liberia from the United States and Europe in the period 1925-35.
Ldamie's work is found in the ethnographic museums of Vienna and Budapest; and in the Peabody Museum (Cambridge), American Museum of Natural History (NYC), the National Museum of African Art (Smithsonian), the National Museum of Natural History (Smithsonian), the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Hearst Museum of Anthropology, and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
In 1934-35, Walter Logan Fry of Akron, Ohio was Cashier for the Bank of Monrovia. He was fascinated with Liberia; and collected art and everyday objects, and took photos of the people and the countryside. Among the objects he brought back to the United States were Dan brass figures by Ldamie. His Ldamie collection is among the largest in the United States, if not the largest; and it is likely that Mr. Fry purchased the objects directly from Ldamie.
The Digital Museum of Modern Art has put part of the collection online. To see the more comprehensive collection, including the ethnographic objects, photographs and letters, go to the African Art Collection of Walter Logan Fry. To see five galleries of the work of Ldamie, go to the Comparative Galleries of Ldamie. Myspace no longer allows direct links, but you can see both by pasting the following URL in your browser:
www.dmoma.org/lobby/exhibitions/walter_logan_fry/
Below are pictures of Liberia taken by Walter Logan Fry in 1934-35: