Über das Lot Chargen- 93
Titel : STATUETTE DOGON DOGON, TOMO-KA REGION, SENO PLAIN, FEMALE FIGURE
Herkunft : Aurait appartenu à Sidney Burney, Londres, avant 1931
Michael Sadler, Oxford, avant 1935
Jacob Epstein (1880-1959), Londres, avant 1951
Collection Carlo Monzino, Lugano, Suisse
Galerie L and R Entwistle Gallery, Paris et Londres
Collection privée américaine, acquise auprès de ces derniersLiterature : Probablement Henry Moore, 'Sketbook 1930-1931', Londres (reproduit dans
Rubin, ed, 1984, vol.II, p.602)
Sweeney, J. J., African Negro Sculpture, Museum of Modern Art, New York,
1935, p.31, n.15, (mentionnée)
Resnais, A., et Marker, C., Les Statues Meurent Aussi (film), France,
1951-1953
Fagg, W., et Ireland, G., Jacob Epstein Collection inventory, liste
post-mortem
Fagg, W., The Epstein Collection of Tribal and Exotic Sculpture, The
Arts Council of Great Britain, 1960, cat.no.142
Rubin, W., Primitivism' in 20th century art, New York, 1984, Volume 1,
p.165
Vogel, S., African Aesthetics: The Carlo Monzino Collection, New York,
1986, p.5, cat.3
Bassani, E., et McLeod, M., Jacob Epstein: Collector, Milan, 1989, p.79,
fig.4
Leloup, H., Statuaire dogon/Dogon Statuary, Strasbourg, 1994, cat.132
Martinez-Jacquet, H., Ode au Grand Art Africain: Les Statues Meurent
Aussi, Paris, 2010, p.148, cat.69Anmerkung : The offered Dogon figure has enjoyed a long and celebrated history and
was likely a muse to two of the greatest British sculptors of the 20th
century - Jacob Epstein and Henry Moore. The figure, of exceptionally
tall, elongated proportions was once in the sculptor, Jacob Epstein's,
celebrated collection of African and Oceanic art in London. It was also
likely sketched by Henry Moore around 1930 when it was in the hands of
the gallerist Sidney Burney, a central figure of the British art world
in the 1920's and 30's. Moore and Epstein were both profoundly inspired
by the art of Africa and Oceania. With a long publication and exhibition
history, the figure has the distinction of having been shown at New
York's Museum of Modern Art in two landmark shows featuring African art,
once in 1935 (African Negro Art) and again in 1984 ('Primitivism' and
20th Century Art).
The provenance of the figure is certain as of 1935. At this time, it was
in the collection of Sir Michael Sadler of Oxford, who lent it to the
landmark exhibition of African art at the Museum of Modern Art in New
York organized by James Johnson Sweeney under the auspices of its
director, Alfred H. Barr, Jr., the avant-garde director. It has long
been supposed that the figure belonged to someone named Sadler as per an
old label at the figures base - 'Sadler/35.61.8' (see Bassani and
MacLeod, p. 79). The archives documenting the show at the MoMA confirm
this attribution through a checklist which matches the Sadler name, the
figure's description (then listed as Sudan) and number on the figure.
There is additional correspondence with Sadler (African Negro Art [MoMA
Exh. n.39, March 18-May 19, 1935]).
Sir Michael Ernest Sadler (1861 -1943) was a British historian,
educationalist and university administrator. He made many important
contributions in the world of education, but is most notable from an art
historical perspective, when he became Vice-Chancellor of the University
of Leeds in 1911, before returning to Oxford in 1923. As Master of
University College, Oxford, he continued to influence national
educational policy, and promote the work of various modernist artists.
In Leeds, Sadler became President of the avant-garde modernist cultural
group, the Leeds Arts Club. Originally founded in 1903 by Alfred Orage,
the Leeds Arts Club was an important meeting ground for radical artists,
thinkers, educationalists and writers in Britain, and had strong
leanings to the cultural, political and theoretical ideas coming out of
Germany at this time (Tom Steele, Alfred Orage and the Leeds Arts Club
1893-1923, Mitcham, Orage Press, 2009, p. 218f). Sadler was friends with
Wassily Kandinsky in Munich, and he built a remarkable collection of
expressionist and abstract expressionist art at a time, including works
by Gauguin, when such art was either unknown or dismissed in London,
even by well-known promoters of modernism such as Roger Fry. He also
published a book on African art: Arts of West Africa (excluding Music),
Oxford, 1935.
It seems likely that Sadler acquired this sculpture from London's most
important and influential dealer of British, Eskimo, African and Oceanic
Art in the 1920s and 1930, Sidney Burney. It was from Burney's
ground-breaking exhibition in Britain - Exhibition of Modern and African
Sculpture, November - December 1928, that Sadler acquired John
Skeaping's Blood Horse, 1929, now in the collection of the Tate Gallery,
London (no. N05455). It also included works by Zadkine, Epstein, Dobson
and Hepworth. Moreover, it is possible that Sadler acquired this figure
from Burney during his next ambitious exhibition at his gallery at 13
St. James Place in November 1932, curated by Leon Underwood encompassing
150 sculptures - arts of African, Oceanic, Egyptian and Pre-Columbian
art were shown with the same roster of modern artists as in 1928, but
also included sculptures by Degas, Modigliani and Henry Moore. According
to Sadler's son, his collection of masks and figures from Sudan, the
Ivory Coast, Easter Island and Gabon was in place by 1932 (Sadleir,
1949, p. 388). Unfortunately, there are no archives and very little
documentary information available on Burney (with thanks to Hermione
Waterfield for sharing her investigations on Burney). It is certain,
though, that his gallery was a major hub for British artists at this
time, Epstein, Moore and Leon Underwood, for instance, who was an artist
and teacher to Moore. Underwood was also a collector and scholar of
African art who published several books on the subject.
Henry Moore visited Burney's gallery. Moore's visits to the British
Museum in the 1920s and onward are well-known and made a profound impact
on his work, as evidenced in his sketchbooks at the time, and an
influence he has always acknowledged (see Wilkinson in Rubin (ed.) 1984,
pp.594-613) and Henry Moore at the British Museum (1981). Moore would
have been influenced by Sadler as well having studied at Leeds School of
Art in 1919. In one of Moore's sketches of the period 1930-1931, he
inscribed at the top his visit to Burneys gallery - 'Remember Mexican
mother and child at Burney's - simple power and intensity - and Negro
figure for vitality and pick of life - and the figure belonging to
Epstein - Negro mother and child for big primitive power.'
The offered Epstein, former Sadler, figure is strikingly similar to
Moores sketch, and matches none in the British Museum, for instance. The
offered figure is likely the one depicted as Burney was the only major
source of important African sculpture in Britain at that moment. Other
masterpieces credited as passing through Burneys hands include the
Yoruba bowl by Olowe (NMFAA 95-10-1) and an Owo Ivory Maternity, see
Sotheby's, New York, 18 November 1986, n.97.
In 1930, Moore produced a female torso in ebony reminiscent of this
figure, with full, high breasts, abbreviated facial features, especially
the dotted eyes and the long, arm with paw-like hand, and certainly a
figure which signaled the important and monumental works of art which
would later define his body of work.
Sometime after the figure was with Burney and Sadler, and after it was
seen in 1935 at New York's MoMA, it entered Jacob Epstein's important
collection of African and Oceanic art. It is documented as part of
Epstein's collection by 1951 in the film by Resnais and Marker - Les
statues meurent aussi. The works of art in the film were assembled by
renowned experts William Fagg (former Keeper of Ethnography, British
Museum) and Charles Ratton (see Martinez-Jacquet, op. cit.). Epstein
became interested in African and Oceanic works of art as early as 1905,
and his passion and voracity for collecting is well-documented (see
Bassani and Fagg and Wilkinson in Rubin (ed.) pp.417-452).
While a few works from Epstein's art collection went to auction after
his death, the majority were acquired by Carlo Monzino. From Monzino's
collection it was tapped by William Rubin to be seen once more at the
MoMA in his landmark exhibition "Primitivism" in 20th Century Art:
Affinity of the Tribal and the Modern.
The Sadler/Epstein/Monzino figure has been recognized by some of the
greatest connoisseurs of the last century as a masterpiece of Dogon
sculpture characterized by her exceptional height and high degree of
stylization. The figure was documented in Helene Leloup's major
reference for Dogon sculpture in 1994. Leloup describes the figure:
'This type of statue was sometimes said to be Bamana because of the
black and brilliant patina. They come from the Seno plain where the
influence of the Segu kingdom was very important, but they all have the
characteristic Dogon ornaments: ears pierced with seven rings, labret,
bracelets on the biceps'.Christie's, Auktionator, Paris, FR
🔓Keine Kreditkarte nötig.
Verkaufstitel : Art Africain et Océanien
Verkaufsdatum : 19/06/2013
🔓Keine Kreditkarte nötig.
Auktionsreferenz : Live Sale
