Sotheby's Chaim Gross Tribal Art Auction Preview

Sotheby’s is offering a sale of tribal art from the collection of the Renee and Chaim Gross Foundation. Chaim Gross, well known Modernist sculptor, and his wife Renee collected African and Oceanic tribal art during the 1940s and 1950s. They were some of the earliest and most enthusiastic collectors of tribal art in the United States. In the 1940s, Gross acquired the Crowninshield collection, formerly of Vanity Fair editor Frank Crowninshield. Many of these works had been exhibited in the 1937 Brooklyn Museum exhibition “African Negro Art from the Collection of Frank Crowninshield."

Highlights of the sale include:

Lot 9: The Soninke Hermaphrodite Figure from Mali, possibly 12th to 15th Century, estimated at $400,000 to $600,000

Lot 25: A Senufo Kneeling Female Figure from the Ivory Coast purchased in the 1950s from Merton D. Simpson, estimated between $250,000 to $350,000

Lot 67: Ngbaka Male Ancestor Figure from the Ubangi region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from the Crowninshield collection, estimated at $400,000 to $600,000

This should be an extraordinary sale with several exceptionally rare and high quality pieces. Because of the unexpectedly good results of the Sotheby’s Rosenthal sale in November 2008, the consignors must have very high expectations from this auction.

Works from the sale will be on exhibition at Sotheby’s New York from May 9-14, 2009 and the sale will take place on May 15 at 10.00am in New York.

More information is available in Sotheby’s press release. 

Dori Rootenberg

www.JacarandaTribal.com