ABOVE: Headrests.
Southern Zimbabwe and South Africa.
Wood. H: 18–21 cm.
Ex Jonathan Lowen, London; Graham Beck, South Africa.
To be offered by Bonhams, Los Angeles, on November 11, 2019, estimates between
$20,000 and $50,000.
Bonhams
LOS ANGELES AND NEW YORK—This September,
Bonhams is planning two sales of Native American
art. The fi rst, titled Traditional/Individual, focuses on
contemporary Native American art and will be held
in Los Angeles on September 16, 2019. It will feature
48
artworks from the notable collection of the late
L. D. “Brink” Brinkman, who is recognized as having
formed one of the most signifi cant private collections
of art of the West. The same day, the department will
initiate an online sale of historic Native American art,
for which bidding will close the following week.
On November 11, 2019, Bonhams will hold another
sale at its New York headquarters featuring the
collection of African and Oceanic headrests of Graham
Beck. The collection was largely formed from the
1970s through the 1990s by prolifi c collector Jonathan
Lowen, a South African barrister who lived in
London and acquired heavily at auctions in that city
and internationally. By predilection and circumstance,
his collection has a heavy emphasis on fi ne examples
from South Africa and other former British holdings.
A second sale of the arts of Africa, Oceania, and the
Pre-Columbian Americas will follow. Among the offerings
will be other artworks from the Beck Collection.
ABOVE: Fritz Scholder (Luiseño, 1937–2005).
Screaming Indian. 1970.
Oil on canvas. 172.7 x 172.7 cm.
Acquired from the artist in Taos by Brink Brinkman in 1970.
To be offered by Bonhams, Los Angeles, on September 16, 2019,
est. $40,000–60,000.
ABOVE: Club.
Great Plains. Mid 19th
century.
Catlinite. H: 54.6 cm.
To be offered by Skinner, Boston, on
November 9, 2019, est. $15,000–
20,000.
ABOVE RIGHT: Pipe bowl.
Eastern Woodlands.
Beginning of the 19th
century or earlier.
Wood. H: 13.3 cm.
To be offered by Skinner, Boston, on
November 9, 2019, est. $15,000–
20,000.
Skinner
BOSTON—The ninth of November, 2019, will bring
Skinner’s autumn American Indian and Tribal Art
sale. In addition to a collection of Oceanic weapons
from a number of island groups, including Tonga,
Fiji, New Zealand, New Caledonia, and Vanuatu, the
sale will feature a large amount of both historic and
contemporary Pueblo pottery from the American
Southwest. Two historic Native American items are
of particular note: a rare Eastern Woodlands fi gurative
pipe bowl and a mid-nineteenth-century Plains
catlinite club, the latter formerly in the McAlpine
Collection. A sleeper in the sale may well be a nineteenth
century Inupiaq mask, collected in Point
Hope, Alaska, by Episcopalian minister Dr. John
Beach Driggs, who was in the area between 1890
and 1910 (see “Calendar of Auctions and Shows”).