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- Category: Campus News
LINCOLN UNIVERSITY, PA – Religious Art of Ethiopia: Art and Artifacts of the Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox Church, an exhibition featuring works from two important donors to the Lincoln University African Collections, is now on view in the atrium gallery of the International Cultural Center (ICC), located on the main campus in southern Chester County, Pa.
Donor Robert T. Freeman, Jr., a 1941 Lincoln University graduate, worked in several African countries assisting in economic development, and was the founder and manager of the Ghana Insurance Company. He also helped establish Ghana’s social security system. During the 1980s, Freeman was a member of Lincoln’s Board of Trustees and in 1987 was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University.
In 1973, he donated his collection, consisting exclusively of Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox Church artifact. Works currently on exhibit include several examples of processional and hand-held crosses, Gospel texts written in Ge’ez and an ivory handled sistrum. Also on display is a selection of small silver pendants and pendant crosses drawn from the extensive Freeman Collection of ninety-three pendants.
Second donor, Franklin H. Williams also graduated from Lincoln University in 1941 and was the sixth U. S. ambassador to Ghana, appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson. He held this post from 1965 until 1968. Prior to this appointment, he had assisted Sargent Shriver in establishing the Peace Corps. Then in 1963, he served as director of the African regional division. Beginning in 1970, Williams served twenty years as president of the Phelps-Stokes Fund until his passing in 1990. Just prior to William’s death, he was appointed to serve on the Barnes Foundation Board.
The Williams donation consists primarily of artifacts from Ghana but, as with Freeman, Williams was also a collector of Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox Church art. His collection has numerous wonderful artifacts, including twenty-four processional and twenty-nine hand-held crosses; Gospel texts; and “magic” scrolls written in Ge’ez. The collection also holds several excellent examples of olive wood pendant icons.
Among those in the exhibition are two in the shape of a cross that are richly carved and fold out exposing finely painted triptychs.
For further information or to tour the exhibit, contact Lincoln University Associate Professor Jeffrey Chapp: (484-365-7653) or jchapp@lincoln.edu .