I’m proud to announce our May sale in New York, “Timeless: Masterworks of African Art“; you can browse the catalogue online here. This exceptional sale features only twelve masterworks of African Art. As the exhibition and auction will coincide with Christie’s major 20th Century Week sales, which always attract huge crowds to our Rockefeller Center viewing rooms, we wish to confront these new audiences with only the best of the best. As last year’s curated sale, Evolution of Form, the twelve works will be in good company and spread throughout the viewing rooms.
A celebration the diversity of form and innovation of African artistry, from the West coast, to Central and to South Africa, these rare works are fresh to the market and maintain distinguished provenance, which is further enhanced by their exhibition histories and published literature. From incarnations of gods, supreme beings and oracles to works of virtuosity and idealized beauty this presentation is highly rich and was brought together not only to present classical examples, in addition to the Dogon maternity, such as the Bédiat-Huston Baule mask and Matisse Fang Figure, but foremost works of innovation rarely seen on the market – such as the Grebo mask, the Pindi dancing fgure, the Mfumte fgure and the Tsonga female fgure from South Africa. Although these masterworks have only become ‘art’ rather recently upon their arrival in Europe and the United States in the 20th century, Timeless aspires to reveal their universal qualities and demonstrate their rightful place on the great world stage of art throughout time and space.
The sale is on Friday 19 May at 10AM. The viewing days are:
6 May, 10am – 5pm
7 May, 1pm – 5pm
8 May, 10am – 5pm
9 May, 10am – 5pm
10 May, 10am – 5pm
11 May, 10am – 5pm
12 May, 10am – 5pm
13 May, 10am – 5pm
14 May, 1pm – 5pm
15 May, 10am – 5pm
16 May, 10am – 5pm
17 May, 10am – 5pm
18 May, 10am – 5pm
I hope to see you there!
ps If you were wondering.. the sale’s theme was partly inspired by a text by André Malraux, Promenades imaginaires dans Florence, from 1975:
On this earth of ours where everything is subject to the passing of time, one thing only is both subject to time and yet victorious over it: the work of art.