On view this summer at the Musée du Quai Branly is Charles Ratton, l'invention des arts "primitifs", an exhibition that offers an opportunity to highlight the view of Charles Ratton, an expert, dealer and collector who changed the history of the way “primitive” art was perceived by promoting objects which moved away from the taste for “Negro” art that had prevailed in early twentieth-century Europe. His close involvement in the museum world and his scientific curiosity, shown in the richness of his archives, helped his expertise to flourish. His activities as an expert, and the exhibitions he organized, contributed to the shift in status of works from Africa, America and Oceania: from anthropological study objects to works of art in the 1930s, then masterpieces in the 1960s, in France but also in the United States.
 |
| Mask - Côte d'Ivoire |
 |
| Canoe prow ornament - Solomon Islands |
 |
| Zoomorphic slit drum - Congo |
 |
| Figure dedicated to Gou - Benin, Nigeria |
Images courtesy of the Musée du Quai Branly
