Sasha and Malia as Velasquez princesses by Betsy Gallery in Santa Barbara, CA

Many painters from Picasso to El Equipo Cronica and other artists have riffed on some of Diego Velasquez's most famous images.  While living in Madrid, Spain in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s I saw the wonderful pop-art ceramic figures based on Las Meninas and other iconic Velasquez paintings made by two artists who called themselves El Equipo Cronica.

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Kente Cloth with Two Akua'ba Dolls: Mosaic by Betsy Gallery in Santa Barbara, CA.

Ghana is home to the ncient Ashanti tribe, famous for exquisite handwoven Kente cloth and iconic fertility dolls with large round heads and cross-like bodies.  My travels there in the 1970s took me the length of that West African country from Accra overland to Kumasi, then hitchiking into The Ivory Coast.  

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