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The artists who created the traditional arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas
are not exactly mainstream in the art world today, and certainly not when
compared to megastars such as famed modernist Pablo Picasso and nearly as
famed contemporary artist Jeff Koons. If price is any measure of popularity,
it’s interesting to note that Picasso’s 1955 Les Femmes d’Alger (Women of
Algiers), version “O,” brought $179.4 million at auction in May of 2015, a
record for an artist of his generation (though not of a work created in that decade),
and Koons’ 1992–2000 Balloon Dog (Orange) sold for $58.4 million,
setting a record for a work by a living artist at auction. By comparison, the
record for the highest-selling work of African art at auction is currently held
by the Senufo female deble by the Master of Sikasso that sold in 2014 for just
over $12 million. To put all of this into perspective, the record for the highest
selling single work of art at auction in history is now held by Leonardo’s
Salvator Mundi, painted c. 1500, which sold for $450.3 million in 2017.
Our cover shows a male fi gure, bwanga
bwa bwimpe, from the Luluwa people of
the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Wood, pigment. H: 22.8 cm.
Ex Josef Herman, United Kingdom.
Nicole and John Dintenfass Collection, USA.
Photos © Vincent Girier Dufournier, Paris.
Editorial
Price and popularity are by no means the only measures of interest. One of the greatest joys
in the appreciation of art is looking at the little seen, a process that lies at the root of true connoisseurship.
This particular issue of our magazine is an excellent embodiment of this concept.
Some of our subjects fall well within the mainstream, but our articles provide fresh insights. The
Luluwa people, for example, have produced one of the classical art canons of what is now the
Democratic Republic of the Congo, but it has been little examined. Costa Petridis’ article—a
summation of his new book, which we highly recommend—provides previously unknown details
about the classifi cation, styles, intent, and use of these masterful carvings. Prehistoric Mimbres
pottery from the American Southwest is also no stranger to art afi cionados, but our article about
an exhibition currently at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art examines not the pottery itself
but the groundbreaking research of curators Tony Berlant and Evan Maurer that centers around
indigenous psychoactive use of the fl owering datura plant as well as other local fl ora. This casts
an entirely new light on the patterns painted on the ceramics and on the intent of the entire genre.
Other subjects that we examine here are a little—or a lot—more obscure. Klaus Maaz’s piece
on a weather charm from the Kaniet Islands examines the only known example of its type, the
sole survivor of a tradition otherwise known only in the Caroline Islands hundreds of miles to the
north. Marc Petit’s feature on the medicine fi gures from present-day Myanmar is the fi rst comprehensive
look at this deeply syncretic tradition that may predate Hindu-Buddhist infl uence in the
region. Finally, our Portfolio section by yours truly looks at the published lithographic portraits
of Native American subjects by James Otto Lewis, who worked as an artist in the 1820s for what
would become the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Few remember Lewis’ work, but most know the lithographs
of McKenney and Hall, whose publications followed his and were infl uenced by his work.
Every bit as diverse and interesting are the offerings that dealers will present at the seventeenth
annual Parcours des Mondes tribal and Asian art fair, which will be held in the galleries of Saint-
Germain-des-Prés in Paris from September 11–16, 2018. If you’re interested enough in this subject
to be reading this magazine, you won’t be disappointed. I look forward to seeing you there.
Jonathan Fogel