Kongo Male Power Figure, Democratic Republic of the Congo

Helena Rubinstein, New York, Paris and London
Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, and Sotheby & Co, London, The Helena Rubinstein Collection: African and Oceanic Art, Part Three, October 15, 1966, lot 89 (ill.)
James Willis, San Francisco, acquired at the above auction
Myron Kunin, Minneapolis, acquired from the above on July 10, 1996

M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, Viewpoints X: Kongo Power Figures, November 15, 1989 - January 21, 1990

Suzanne Slesin, Over the Top: Helena Rubinstein: Extraordinary Style, Beauty, Art, Fashion Design, New York, 2003, pp. 174-175

One of the most famous art collectors of the 20th century, the cosmetics magnate Helena Rubinstein amassed an important collection of African art, alongside her Impressionist and Modern paintings, before the category was widely appreciated.  Beginning before the First World War, she credited her initial interest in African art to the British sculptor Jacob Epstein, who, as she wrote (Rubinstein 1964: 51) "guided me in my acquisitions", helping her to select the best objects available in pre-war Paris.  Her association with Epstein and with other important figures from the Parisian avant-garde, such as Maurice de Vlaminck and Paul Eluard, udoubtedly influenced the composition of Rubinstein's collection.  Her acquisitions often reflected a typically "French" taste for what Robert Goldwater, founding director of the Museum for Primitive Art, has called "intellectual primitivism", with a preference for balanced forms and a smooth dark finish.

The present Kongo Male Power Figure, visible in a photograph of Rubinstein's richly-appointed New York triplex at 625 Park Avenue (fig. 1), was offered in the famous multi-part sale of Rubinstein's collection in New York in 1966, which was a watershed moment in the development of the market for African art and introduced New York as a center of trade in the field for the first time.

The collecting of Helena Rubinstein will be the subject of an exhibition entitled: Helena Rubinstein: Beauty Is Power to be held at the Jewish Musem in New York, October 31, 2014 - March 22, 2015.