Ethnographica & Tribal Art

Desmond Morris on his many lives as a zoologist, painter, author and collector

This 1880s Haida painted wood raven rattle, 12¾in (32cm) high, has a provenance to the North Lake Tahoe Historical Society and the collection of the late Johnson S Bogart, San Francisco.

At the Drouot auction centre on June 6 the Paris firm of Binoche et Giquello will be selling a third instalment from a US collection of pre-Columbian works from Meso, Central and South America which is expected to realise in the region of €3m-4m.

Tribal art makes regular saleroom appearances in Paris, which is one of the major commercial centres in this sector.

Spring is a traditional point in the saleroom calendar for New York to mount its tribal art auctions.

The market for tribal art covering works from Africa, Oceania and the Americas has a global reach these days. While particular centres form cultural and commercial hubs (New York, Paris and Brussels in particular), you can find fairs and shows, shops and auctions around the world. Recent sale highlights and previews from some of the upcoming auctions and fairs are featured here.

Antiquities and tribal art will be on offer at Chiswick Auctions in west London on June 27.

Tribal art is a sector with truly international appeal and fairs and shows go on throughout the year across various locations.

Paris is a centre for auctions of Pre-Columbian art. On March 18 Copages is offering an Italian collection of works that were sourced from major salerooms such as Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Loudmer as well as specialist dealers like Galerie Mermoz and the Emmeritz Gallery.

On April 9 Christie’s will be holding a Pre-Columbian sale featuring the 90-lot collection formed by Felix and Heidi Stoll from Basel as well as around 50 pieces from other vendors.

With so many tribal art galleries concentrated in Brussels it is no surprise to find 10 specialists in the field showing at BRAFA, six of them from the Belgian capital.

A North-west Coast Tlingit pipe in the form of a bear will be offered at an upcoming auction in Boston.

Tribal art is very much a strength of the Paris art market, with sales taking place throughout the year.

The biannual world tour of tribal lands – Alaska to New Zealand via Arizona, Africa and Taiwan – organised by auctioneer Will Hobbs at Woolley & Wallis (25% buyer’s premium) offered a global view of what is an active, if often unpredictable, field.

Specialist dealer in Oceanic art Anthony Meyer, whose gallery is in the rue des Beaux Arts on the Left Bank, is one of the Paris dealers who is doubly busy this September.

The gallery-lined medieval streets of the St-Germain-des-Prés area of Paris will be thronged with a babel of different accents and cultures during the second week of September.

As well as the themed shows, some of which are detailed on these two pages, this year’s Parcours has a loan exhibition that goes to the roots of the French tribal art collecting.

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