Fragments of the Fang
October 2007
African art is a latecomer to the world of collecting, though traditional ethnographic artworks have been sought after on a commercial level for more than a century. Records from the end of the 19th century, including those from London auctions such as Steven’s Auction Rooms or dealer catalogues from Webster and Oldman, show a healthy market for curios and specimens from around the globe.Prices varied, but the more exotic items such as Jivaro shrunken heads, Benin war booty and South Sea artifacts were often more actively pursued than crude carvings of disproportionately shaped men and women from Africa.
In the early 20th century, a group of artists and like-minded writers and critics "discovered" the arts of Africa, the Pacific and the Americas, and began appreciating them for their visual properties, beyond any historical or anthropological interest. Each geographic area offered broad similarities of artistic form and captured the imagination of groups of artists holding widely different tenets. The Cubists appreciated African sculptures, the Surrealists found fantasy in the arts of the Pacific, the Northwest Coast and the Pueblo Indians, and others, such as the German Expressionists, found inspiration in ethnographic art forms from all these regions. Although many individuals were active in the acquisition and study of these pieces, knowledge of their original use was almost non-existent, and for many inspired people, their ethnicity was much less important than their inherent sculptural qualities. Artworks were often described simply as "art nègre," or in broadly geographic terms like "Congo" or "French Sudan," without any further specific nomenclature. Pieces reflected the vision of the contemporary art of the time, and the most desirable offered the viewer a vocabulary that was easily understood.
In the field of African art, a consensus of desirability slowly emerged, with a pricing structure to match. Then, Africa was divided into spheres of European influence, with Britain, France and Germany being the largest colonial powers. Artifacts flowed out of the colonies and into these countries, often quickly entering the marketplace. Since Paris was the center of the early 20th-century art world, those African sculptures that came easily to the various flea markets in and around Paris were the first to interest and excite artistic minds. These artifacts were brought from the French colonies of West and Central Africa: French Sudan, Upper Volta, Ivory Coast, Congo and especially Gabon. While there was a long tradition of collecting weapons and ethnographic material, this period brought a decided interest in masks and figural sculpture. These types of objects were more fascinating to the artistic community as they reflected more fully the human form, which was then undergoing radical reinterpretations.
Then as now, money followed art, and French colonial pieces began to be more sought after than those from other regions of Africa. They were better known than pieces from Nigeria and Cameroon, and they had a visual accessibility that made them easier to comprehend. A great emphasis was placed on the plasticity of a sculpture, and the refined execution of the figure is well-represented in art of the French regions. Baule, Senufo, Bamana and in particular Fang sculptures came from these areas and found their way into some of the earliest collections.
The sculptor Jacob Epstein was one of the very first to assiduously seek out African pieces rather than acquire chance finds, and he arguably led collectors in a direction that is still followed today. Epstein lived in Paris in the first decade of the 20th century and started collecting at about the same time as Picasso, Vlaminck and Matisse. Collecting was a passion for him and a necessary reassurance of his own artistic abilities. He was determined to have what he considered the best, and became as renowned for his collection of African sculpture as for his own work. He chose from many geographical areas of Africa, and had a goodly number of things from the English regions, such as Benin and Ashanti, but for the most part his collection was from the Francophone countries and included several Dogon and Bamana pieces and numerous Baule statues. However, the centerpiece of his entire holdings was undoubtedly a group of 18 Fang reliquary figures and heads from Gabon. This ensemble, large by any standard, included most of the very finest examples then known. As a trained artist, Epstein knew what to assess in figural sculpture and saw that the forms of the Fang statues were the most elastic and balanced of African sculpture. Fang statuary exhibits tremendous inner strength, muscled into rounded limbs, legs and torsos. The head is always proportionally large, perfecting the wider African sculptural tradition of distortion. The wood surface, anointed with nut oil by generations of guardians, adds a dark depth, further emphasizing the soft volumes.Taste in African art began to widen beyond the formal canons of Fang sculpture when artifacts from previously unknown areas started to appear in the mid-20th century. While some Dogon works were brought to Europe early on, arriving to the market haphazardly, the interest of the wider collecting field was sparked by the writings of Marcel Griaule, a French anthropologist who conducted important research among them in the 1930s. His 1937 book on Dogon masks opened eyes to the cubistic language of the carvers and revealed cave statuary of obviously great age. Later, interior areas of Nigeria and what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo offered up troves of fabulous sculptural traditions, from the gothic abstraction of the Mumuye to the peaceful serenity of the Hemba. All of these "discoveries" were visually judged by standards accepted a generation earlier, though accepted with a sense of freedom from rigid art-historical doctrines.
Nonetheless, the art of Gabon remained at the very forefront of interest as the perceived classicism continued to inform most peoples perceptions of African sculpture. This interest was jolted by the appearance on the market of the Helena Rubinstein collection in New York in 1966. Rubinstein, founder of a cosmetics company and an international socialite, was intimately involved with the important artists of the mid-20th century, and had tremendous paintings by practically all the masters. She also put together an exquisite collection of African art that again reflected the dominance of the Francophone marketplace. Most numerous were works from the Ivory Coast and Mali, though, like the Epstein collection formed 50 years earlier, it was justly famous for its many examples of Fang statuary. While a Cameroon "Bangwa Queen," photographed by Man Ray, brought the highest price in the sale ($29,000), the Fangs as a group set records that elevated the market to a new level. African art until then had been for connoisseurs, but Rubinstein had the social connections to draw a whole new group of wealthy people who had never looked at this art form before.
The African art market flowed well at the new price levels, and with several high-profile sales in the 1970s and ’80s, such as the collections of James Hooper, George Ortiz and the Aga Khan, the market was always perceived as buoyant. This trend led to the private-treaty sale in the late 1980s of the core of the Epstein Fang collection for a rumored $20 million. However, the art market bubble burst, and for several years into the early 1990s, prices fell and pieces languished either in the galleries or in the auction rooms. The first ray of daylight was the 1992 New York estate sale of William McCarty-Cooper, another art-world socialite whose fine collection had a number of Gabon works, including exceptional Fang pieces. While the overall results were patchy, the Fangs lifted the sale, selling within or well above expectations.
Since then, many other regions of Africa have seen tremendous interest in their indigenous arts. Long neglected, the sculpture of East and South Africa has found a wide audience, with many exhibitions and books devoted exclusively to it. Unlike the more obviously figurative masking and sculptural traditions of West and Central Africa, which reflect static social structures, the art of these pastoral peoples was made to be portable, and the staffs, scepters and utilitarian objects show an individual inventiveness that often contrasts favorably with more formal figural sculptural canons. Also, the pure ethnographic forms of the Kabyle and Tuareg in the North have devotees who search for each and every variant type, building systematic collections as new pieces emerge.
Nonetheless, as a continuum from the very first moment of European artistic awareness, figural works of African art, and in particular, works from Gabon, still attract the most attention and the highest prices. Most recently, the Pierre Vérité collection of African art was auctioned in Paris in June 2006 by Enchères Rive Gauche. It was a large collection built by two generations of dealers and had for the most part never been seen. Again, the collection was led by Gabonese artworks, and the highest price, a world record for an African art piece at auction at more than $7.5 million, was for the magnificent Fang mask. Those African works that exhibit the human form, that express inner strength and the emotional human condition, are still the most universally desirable.
EVENTS
"Eternal Ancestors: The Art of the Central African Reliquary" Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Oct. 2–March 2. 212.535.7710
Los Angeles Asian & Tribal Art Show Santa Monica. Nov. 10–11. 310.455.2886
San Francisco Tribal and Textile Fair Feb. 8–10. 310.455.2886. caskeylees.com
New York International Tribal & Textile Arts Show May 2008. 310.455.2886
caskeylees.com
Brussels "Bruneaf" Fair Held annually the second week of June at galleries around the Sablon. bruneaf.com
Parcours des Mondes Paris Held annually during the second week of September at galleries around the 6th district. rikgadellaconsulting.com
Kevin Conru, a dealer in Brussels and London, is the co-author of Bernatzik: South Pacific and The Art of Southeast Africa. He established the Tribal Art and Antiquities departments at Bonhams.
Alain de Monbrison, Paris 011.33.1.46.34.05.20
Antique Tribal Art Dealers Association (ATADA) atada.org
Christie’s Paris 011.33.1.40.76.85.52
Claes Gallery, Brussels, Belgium 011.32.2.414.1929
James Willis Tribal Art 415.885.6736
John Giltsoff, Brussels 011.32.476.572.198
Kevin Conru, Brussels 011.32.2.512.7635
Los Angeles Tribal Art Dealers Association ata-la.com
Pace Primitive, New York 212.421.3688
San Francisco Tribal Art Dealers Association sftribal.com
Sotheby’s New York 212.606.7000
Tambaran Gallery, New York 212.570.0655
Tribal Art magazine tribalarts.com