Displaying items by tag: nonwestern art

Walking into the dramatic first-floor gallery of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, visitors are confronted with the towering bis poles collected by Michael Rockefeller on his final expedition to New Guinea. Rockefeller disappeared on that trip in 1961 at the age of 23, reported drowned at sea under mysterious circumstances that have led to speculation that he may have been eaten by cannibals.

The intricately carved poles are on display in the wing of the Met that bears his name. The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing houses a collection of non-Western art obtained by Rockefeller’s father, New York governor, multimillionaire and subsequent Vice President Nelson Rockefeller.

The Frick’s Center for the History of Collecting announces a new book series with the publication of its first volume, "Holland’s Golden Age in America: Collecting the Art of Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Hals." This series, entitled The Frick Collection Studies in the History of Collecting, is co-published with the Pennsylvania State University Press, and will ultimately cover a broad range of art collecting, reflecting the Center's reach well beyond the parameters of the Frick's own scope to include topics on modern and non-western art. Comments Inge Reist, Director of the Center, “We aim to encourage new scholarship in this young field of art history through our annual acclaimed symposia and ongoing fellowship program, much of which leads to new publications. Complementing that activity is this series that enables the Center to make its own contribution to the growing bibliography on the history of collecting in America.” This and future volumes are drawn from papers given at the Center’s symposia. Upcoming books from recent events include "A Market for Merchant Princes: Collecting Italian Renaissance Painting in America" (February 2015), edited by Inge Reist; "Going for Baroque: Americans Collect Italian Paintings of the 17th and 18th Centuries," edited by Edgar Peters Bowron; and "The Americas Revealed: Collecting Colonial and Modern Latin American Art in the United States," edited by Edward Sullivan.

Americans have long had an interest in the art and culture of Holland’s Golden Age. As a result, the United States can boast extraordinary holdings of Dutch paintings. Celebrated masters such as Rembrandt, Johannes Vermeer, and Frans Hals are exceptionally well represented in museums and private collections, but many fine paintings by their contemporaries can be found here as well.

On 11 November 2014 Sotheby’s New York will present "In Pursuit of Beauty: The Myron Kunin Collection of African Art" in a single owner sale of approximately 190 lots, estimated to fetch $20-30 million. Assembled by Myron Kunin, whose Regis Corporation incorporates over 10,000 salons worldwide including brands from Supercuts to Vidal Sassoon and Jean-Louis David, the collection is considered to be among the finest private groups of non-western art in the world. The outstanding highlight of the sale will be The Senufo Female Statue (Deble), Ivory Coast, one of the most iconic and widely-published works of African Art (Estimate upon request). The pre-sale exhibition opens in New York on 8 November with highlights being shown in Paris from 9-22 September.

Heinrich Schweizer, Head of Sotheby’s African and Oceanic Art Department, recalls: “Myron Kunin was one of the most passionate, knowledgeable, and uncompromising collectors I have ever met. He had the rare ability to identify the very best artworks, irrespective of culture or time-period, and then the courage and unwavering commitment to do whatever it took to acquire them. The result was a world-class collection that stands as one of the finest ever assembled in the field of African Art.”