Tribal Art Auction - Christie's - May 10, 2012

Christie's will present a spring sale of fine tribal art and artifacts on May 10 in New York.  Highlighting objects from the collection of the late Ernst Beyeler, the lots will comprise traditional works from Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, D. R. Congo, Mexico, Australia, and elsewhere.

For more information, visit the official Christie's website.

Anthropomorphic cup  -  Kuba, D. R. Congo

Stirrup-spout vessel in the form of a frog  -  Mochica, Peru

Stone mask  -  Chontal, Mexico

Spirit board  -  Era River, Papua New Guinea

Platter in the form of a fish  -  Santa Cruz Islands, Solomon Islands

Club, kotiate  -  Maori, New Zealand

 Information and images courtesy of Christie's

Rare Yup'ik Mask to sell for $2.1 million at Winter Antiques Show

More than 100 years ago, a Yup'ik Eskimo used wood, pigment, sinew, feather and fiber to make a mask celebrating the winds. Now, its striking appearance, rarity and influence on modern art have led its owner to ask what may be a record price for a Native American work.

The 34-inch tall "Donati Studio Mask" - known to the Yup'iks as "the mask that brought the south winds," and therefore spring and sustenance - is for sale at the Donald Ellis Gallery in Dundas, Ontario.

The Yup'iks of western Alaska made elaborate masks for their ceremonial dances, and Mr. Ellis's windmaker mask is one of a dozen bought from the tribe in 1905 by trader Adam Hollis Twitchell. He sold the mask to George Gustav Heye, a collector whose purchases became the core of the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution.

But when the museum had financial trouble in the 1940s, it sold five of its Yup'ik masks. A New York dealer purchased them, for prices ranging from $120 to $160. He resold several to Surrealist artists, including the writer Andre Breton and painter-sculptor Enrico Donati, both of whom found inspiration in the masks.

Four of those five masks are now owned by museums. The most famous of the five, once owned by Mr. Breton, is on view at the Louvre; another is at the Beyeler Foundation in Basel, the private museum established by the late Swiss dealer Ernst Beyeler.

It was the famed dealer's only purchase of Native American art. Mr. Ellis says that modern art collectors, rather than Native-American-art collectors, buy many Yup'ik works because of their relevance to 20th-century art. "These are conceptual works of art," he says.

The Italian-born Donati worked in the U.S. for many decades, dying in 2008 at the age of 99. The Donati Studio Mask is by the same Native American artist and has the same provenance as the Breton mask.

Mr. Ellis is asking just above $2.1 million, a sum fetched a few years ago for a war helmet of the Tlingit - another Pacific Northwest tribe - at a Connecticut auction. People knowledgable about Native American artworks generally consider that total a record.

The mask will be on display at Donald Ellis gallery's booth at the Winter Antiques Show, running January 21-30.

Source: The Wall Street Journal, Judith H. Dobrzynski

Art Dealer and Collector Legend Ernst Beyeler Dies in Switzerland

On February 25, 2010, Ernst Beyeler passed away at his residence in Riehen, Switzerland. He was eighty-eight years old.

Born on July 16, 1921, in Basel as the son of a Swiss railway employee, Beyeler became one of the most renowned art dealers of our time. In the course of 60 years, he organized over three hundred exhibitions at the Galerie Beyeler at Bäumleingasse 9 in Basel.

Beyeler and his wife Hildy, who died in 2008, were gifted art collectors and philanthropists. Together they amassed one of the most significant collections of modern art, including works by Pablo Picasso, Paul Cezanne, Claude Monet, and Henri Matisse. It was transferred to a foundation in 1982 and was first publicly exhibited in its entirety at the Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid in 1989. Today, the collection is accessible to the public at the Fondation Beyeler in Riehen. Housed in a building that was designed by Renzo Piano in 1997, the collection ranges from works by Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne and Vincent van Gogh to Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Francis Bacon. These works are contextualized with tribal art objects from Africa, Oceania and Alaska. Last year, Ernst Beyeler resigned from the foundation presidency and named Hansjörg Wyss as President of the Foundation Council, Georg Krayer as President of the Administration Council, and Sam Keller as Museum Director.

Besides his various art related activities, which included co-founding the established Art Basel art fair, Beyeler was also actively engaged in the protection of nature and the environment. In 2001, he and his wife established the Art for the Tropical Forests Foundation in order to direct part of the gains from his museum to protecting the world’s tropical forests.