72 HELENA RUBINSTEIN: BEAUTY IS POWER New York—The Jewish Museum is currently presenting Helena Rubinstein: Beauty Is Power, the first museum exhibition to explore the ideas, innovations, and enduring influence of the legendary cosmetics entrepreneur Helena Rubinstein (1872–1965). By the time of her death, Rubinstein had risen from humble origins in small-town Jewish Poland to become a global icon— the head of a cosmetics empire extending across four continents. She was the first modern, self-made woman magnate; an avatar of female entrepreneurship; and a tastemaker in the worlds of art, fashion, and design. On view through March 22, 2015, the exhibition explores how Rubinstein—as a businesswoman, arts patron, and one of the leading collectors of African and Oceanic art of her time—helped break down the status quo of taste by blurring boundaries between commerce, art, fashion, beauty, and design. It reunites selections from her famed art collection, which was famously dispersed in 1966. The installation features works by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Elie Nadelman, and Joan Miró, among others, as well as more than thirty works from her peerless collection of African and Oceanic art, which fifty years later is still regarded as a benchmark for tribal art collectors. The exhibition is accompanied by a 168-page catalog distributed by Yale University Press. COLOMBIA Los Angeles—Despite the popular legend of El Dorado, Colombia never captured the imagination of the sixteenth-century European public the way Mexico or Peru did. As such, documentation from the early contact period is relatively sparse. Apart from the diverse archaeological remains, the most valuable information comes from Spaniards who looked beyond the gold sought by so many to see the real marvels of the New World. Some wrote accounts, while others collected letters and reports by conquistadors for compilation into publications. Ancient Colombia: A Journey through the Cauca Valley, on view at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art from January 31–December 31, 2015, follows the sixteenth-century journey of Pedro Cieza de Léon, one of the most important chroniclers of the conquest, who landed on the north shore of what is now Colombia in 1533 and traveled through the Cauca River Valley. Throughout the exhibition, quotes from his descriptions are used to compare and contrast his views and those of his contemporaries with the insights of recent scholarship that pertain to the Colombian antiquities on view. In many cases, these objects appear to illustrate the same world that the Spaniards described. However, recent study of the material culture and indigenous groups of Colombia reveals, not surprisingly, that the history of the people of Colombia is far older and more diverse than these invaders ever suspected. Ocarina in the form of a seated lord. Colombia, Tairona. 1000–1550 CE. Ceramic. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, inv. M2007.146.448. Above: Helena Rubinstein holding one of her masks from Côte d’Ivoire, 1934. Photograph by George Maillard Kesslere. Helena Rubinstein Foundation Archives, Fashion Institute of Technology, SUNY, Gladys Marcus Library, Special Collections. Head. Yoruba, Esie region, Offa, Nigeria. 12th–15th century. Soapstone. H: 29.9 cm. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection, Bequest of Nelson A. Rockefeller, 1979. Photo © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Center left: Helena Rubinstein in the library of her Paris apartment on the Ile Saint Louis, 1951. Helena Rubinstein Foundation Archives, Fashion Institute of Technology, SUNY, Gladys Marcus Library, Special Collections. Left: Reliquary head. Fang, Gabon. 19th century. Wood. H: 34.9 cm. Private collection. Right: Head of laughing woman. Veracruz, Mexico. AD 600–700. Ceramic. H: 15.9 cm. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Princess Gourielli (Helena Rubinstein). Photo: Bridgeman Images.
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