141 live with these objects. Since that time my wife, Sue, and I have been back to Africa many times, again to see wildlife. I did collect some Oceanic art for a while but eventually consciously decided to focus on Africa and more specifically on figures because that forms a framework that I can comfortably work within. TAM: Within Africa, you’ve brought together a broad array of art styles from a great many cultures, but there are very few duplicates. What sort of criteria do you use for selecting the artworks you acquire? RS: In my early reading on African art I was fascinated with the vast diversity of cultures and styles across the continent. So rather than focusing on a particular country, where the borders are generally an arbitrary Western construct, or on a few specific groups, I decided to try to reflect this diversity in my collection. I set as a goal to have one fine example from as many different peoples as possible. I still lack objects from many different groups and many different styles, largely because they are rare and difficult to find. When folks visit, I have a joke about this that I play with my wife. As we are discussing the art, I lead my guests to notice that there are some notable gaps in the collection. This is a signal to Sue that the collection is still growing. In deciding about actually purchasing an object, the main factor is that it is something I love. I took awhile to develop an eye and to understand what I really respond to. Some of the early objects that I bought appealed to me at the time, but then as I lived with them, they faded. A great object for me is one that I look at every day for years and shake my head thinking how wonderful it is. I also have studied the great masterpieces of African art in books, museums, and other collections, and I’ve spent many, many hours on the Yale Archive Website looking at large arrays of objects made by any given people. I have to feel that the object that I am purchasing stands up well against the other objects from that culture. TAM: How has your experience with dealers been? RS: Generally positive and I’ve become very close with some of them. After reading a lot of books that presented African art in the context of the aesthetics of the people who created it for their own use—what I would call genuine or authentic—I decided to collect these objects. I met San Francisco dealer James Willis, who is local to where I live, and he got me started in the correct direction. I’m still good friends with Jim and Lin. I then met a number of European dealers, many of whom I’m now also close friends with. Some of these were very helpful. In particular, when I was on a professor’s salary at Stanford, I would often buy an object from Alain de Monbrison and then send checks to him in Paris via US mail for partial payments. Sometimes it took me more than a year to pay for an object. Alain was great about this and never even kept track of how much money I owed him. TAM: Working with the dealers you do, you’ve probably been offered more masterpieces than most collectors. What is it in a work of art that really speaks to you? RS: I appreciate so many different styles, so it’s difficult to say that it’s just one thing. I remember visiting André Fourquet at his home in Paris decades ago. He always liked having Americans visit because, he said, we “saved France in the war.” I don’t recall now the specific piece we were looking at, but I remember FIG. 5 (above): Figure. Chamba, Nigeria. Wood. H: 45 cm. Ex Pierre Dartevelle, Brussels (acquired in Jalingo, Nigeria, in 1968). Martial Bronsin photo archive shows figure with corncob under the right arm at time of collection. FIG. 1 (facing page left): Standing figure. Djimini, Côte d’Ivoire. Ex Alain de Monbrison, Paris. Wood. H: 50 cm. FIG. 2 (facing page bottom): Richard Scheller, 2014. Photo © Susan McConnell. FIG. 3 (facing page right): Male figure. Senufo, Côte d’Ivoire. Field collected by a French administrator in the first part of the 20th century. Ex Alain de Monbrison, Paris; Christine Valluet/Yann Ferrandin, Paris. Wood. H: 55 cm. FIG. 4 (left): Ogbom figure/headcrest. Eket, Nigeria. Collected by Bernard Muhlack, c. 1968. Ex Pierre Dartevelle, Brussels; Bernrd de Grunne, Brussels.
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