93 rican sculpture was ignited. Time spent at Guillaume’s gallery in Paris, with its mix of exotic visitors and bohemian clientele, proved to be intellectually and culturally stimulating to Barnes: I have seen six chiefs of African tribes there at the same time with four principals of the Russian ballet. Like a stream of worshippers all nationalities fl ow into . . . Paul Guillaume’s. English, Japanese, Norwegian, German, American, Italian artists—painters, sculptors, composers, poets, critics—whom I had only known by name. I have heard there criticism more penetrating and more comprehensive than I had ever heard or read elsewhere.11 Barnes now turned his attention to this new collecting area with the same intensity and focus that marked his pursuit of modernist paintings. While not the fi rst American patron of African sculpture, Barnes quickly distinguished himself from the others by assembling a sizable collection in less than two years, acquiring virtually all of the works through Guillaume.12 Barnes’ fi rst purchase demonstrates the extent of his sudden passion. In the summer of 1922 he bought no fewer than forty-seven works from Guillaume’s gallery for 71,000 francs, a sum equivalent to what he would have spent on two or three modern works at the time. With this single acquisition, he became overnight the largest collector of African art in the United States. The types of works he bought were in line with the preferences of his contemporaries, primarily masks and fi gural sculptures—genres more closely aligned with Western concepts of “art” than works that appeared to be more overtly utilitarian. Among the costliest of his purchases, at 4,000 francs each, were a large seated female fi gure by a Senufo artist from Côte d’Ivoire (fi g. 6)—a piece described as “Grand divinité Soudan”—and a smaller Baule female fi gure (fi g. 8), listed as “Idole Cote d’Ivoire.”13 In the fall, Barnes continued to build his collection by acquiring works he saw at Joseph Brummer’s gallery at 43 East 57th Street in New York, all sourced from Guillaume. The price paid—a total of 40,950 francs for just three works—indicates a higher market value for these pieces than any of his earlier purchases and suggests Barnes’ escalating ambitions and, perhaps, his increasing selectivity. This purchase included the exceptional reliquary guardian fi gure (fi gs. 9a and b), sculpted by a Fang artist now known to have been working in northern Gabon in the early nineteenth century, acquired for the hefty sum of 14,000 francs. By comparison, in July 1922 Barnes had purchased a painting by Henri Matisse, Three Sisters and “The Rose Marble Table,” for 22,500 francs. “Please remember,” Barnes wrote to Guillaume around the time of this purchase, “I intend to try to have the best private collection of Negro sculpture in the world.”14 Returning to Paris in the winter of 1922, Barnes made his most costly purchase of African art yet, an additional thirty works from Guillaume’s gallery for a total of 131,110 francs. Again, masks and fi gural statuary dominated the selection, the most expensive being a Baule male fi gure (fi g. 7) at 13,500 francs. This purchase also included a Punu mask from Gabon, acquired for 4,250 francs, that Guillaume had commissioned the artist Man Ray to photograph the previous year, marking the beginning of the photographer’s long engagement with African sculpture (fi gs. 10 and 11).15 While the near-frenzied pace of acquisitions slowed in 1923, by the end of that year Barnes’ collection had grown to almost one hundred works of African sculpture. Though Barnes never explained what motivated his newfound interest, he was not the only collector of modern painting to expand his focus to include African sculpture. Whether or not Barnes was familiar with other similarly FIG. 7 (below): Male fi gure, waka snan, attributed to an artist from the Verité Circle. Baule, Côte d’Ivoire. Before c. 1910. Wood. H: 50.2 cm. The Barnes Foundation, A267. Photo: Rick Echelmeyer, © 2015 The Barnes Foundation. FIG. 8 (bottom left): Female fi gure, waka snan. Baule, Côte d’Ivoire. Late 19th century. Wood. H: 47.9 cm. The Barnes Foundation, A261. Photo: Rick Echelmeyer, © 2015 The Barnes Foundation. FIGS. 9a and b (right and below): Reliquary guardian fi gure, eyema-byeri. Fang, Upper Ntem or Upper Woleu Valley, Northern Gabon. Mid 19th century. Wood. H: 35.6 cm. The Barnes Foundation, A144. Photo: Rick Echelmeyer, © 2015 The Barnes Foundation. The Barnes Foundation
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