- 34
Mask, Bungain, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea
Description
- wood
- Height: 16 in (40.6 cm)
Interior of the mask inscribed '8102' in white ink; '2 1159' & '150' faintly in pencil; four French Customs stamps in black ink
Provenance
Internationales Kunst- und Auktions-Haus, Berlin, Sammlung Joe Hloucha, Prag: Ostasien, Ozeanien, Afrika, Japanische Graphik, December 3-4, 1930, lot 403
Charles Ratton, Paris, possibly acquired at the above auction
Adolf Hoffmeister, Prague, acquired from the above in May, 1938
Thence by descent
Sotheby’s, New York, November 19, 1999, lot 142, consigned by the above
Lance & Roberta Entwistle, London, acquired at the above auction
American Private Collection, acquired from the above
Exhibited
Spolek výtvarných umělců Mánes, Prague, Výstava Emil Filla, plastika, suché jehly, lepty, dřevoryty, litografie, oleje ; černošská a tichomořská plastika 185 soch ze sbírky Joe Hlouchy, [Emil Filla Exhibition: Sculpture, Dry-point, Etchings, Woodcuts, Lithographs, Oils; 185 Negro and Pacific Sculptures from the Collection of Joe Hloucha], 1935
Literature
Vincenc Kramář, Výstava Emil Filla, plastika, suché jehly, lepty, dřevoryty, litografie, oleje ; černošská a tichomořská plastika 185 soch ze sbírky Joe Hlouchy, Prague, 1935, no. 132
Lubor Hájek, Werner Forman & Bedřich Forman, Kunst ferner Länder: Ägypten, Afrika, Amerika, Ozeanien, Indonesien, Prague, 1956, p. 231
Tomáš Winter, Lovesick Exoticism: the Collection of Non-European Ethnic Art of Adolf Hoffmeister, Prague, 2010, p. 82
Condition
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.
Catalogue Note
The present mask is first recorded in 1929 in the collection of the Czech writer Joe Hloucha, whose interest in Oceanic art was perhaps inspired by his uncle Josef Kořenský, who travelled to the Pacific in 1900-1901. Hloucha's wide-ranging collection was exhibited in Prague from November, 1929 - February, 1930, where it met with an enthusiastic reaction from the press and the public. Hloucha subsequently offered the collection for sale en bloc to the Czechoslovakian state, which declined, and so he instead sent it to auction in Berlin at the end of 1930, where it was photographed by the avant-garde photographer Alexander Hackenschmied (Winter in Grossman, Man Ray, African Art, and the Modernist Lens, 2009, p. 104). The auction catalogue contains a long introduction by the anthropologist Leonhard Adam under the title 'The First German Auction of Primitive Art'. It is unclear whether or not the mask sold in the auction (it was exhibited in Prague in 1935 as part of Hloucha's collection), but by 1938 it was in the possession of Charles Ratton.
At that time Ratton was in regular correspondence with the Czech artist, writer, and composer Adolf Hoffmeister, who acquired the present mask from him in May 1938. Hoffmeister was one of the founding members of the Czech avant-garde artistic association Děvetsil, which brought members of the international avant-garde such as André Breton, Walter Gropius, Paul Klee, and Vladimir Mayakovsky to Prague to lecture and perform. From the mid-1920s onward Hoffmeister sketched and conducted improvised interviews with many of these figures, and established a friendship with Breton, with whom he corresponded on the subject of Oceanic art.