News & Events

In a year in which both London and Paris saw major exhibitions dedicated to the genius of Picasso - 'Picasso 1932: Love Fame Tragedy' at Tate Modern in London and 'Picasso. Blue and Rose' at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris - it seemed almost by destiny that Entwistle exhibited the renowned and extensively published Grebo-Krou mask from Ivory Coast once in collection of Picasso's dealer, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler [1884-1979] - see supplementary image.

With its remarkable geometric volumes and stark expressive energy, it was unavoidable that, after seeing this mask in Kahnweiler's apartment, Picasso would go on to own two Grebo masks of his own and, inspired by the dynamic balance of vertical and horizontal as well as  projecting/recessed planes of these masks, he would go on to produce the iconic modernist sculpture 'Guitar' (1912), now in the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

According to the scholar Michael C. FitzGerald, “Picasso praised the reductive geometry characteristic of Krou (Grebo) masks, but he was particularly struck by the rendering of eyes as protruding cylinders, rather than as the deep hollows he had been taught to model in clay or plaster. This reversal of perceived ‘mass’ and ‘void’ inspired the crucial device of his Guitar, the rendering of the instrument’s sound hole as a hollow cylinder.
 
This conceit enabled Picasso to create an immediately recognizable sign and, at the same time, radically restructure an actual guitar by removing most of the top plane of its sound box. With the resonating chamber of the guitar open, the sound hole becomes the tangible centre of a highly synthetic composition of metal sheets.” [1]

The mask is a revolutionary platform for geometric dynamics as numerous planes intersect across its three-dimensionality, pushing the boundaries of depth perception and challenging the precepts of anthropomorphic portraiture; the mask never stops moving or speaking as it engages with the viewer.

The mask manages to express its power on so many planes that it almost becomes a lesson in the mechanics of equilibrium and three-dimensionality: the way the elongated forehead is bisected vertically by a raised median ridge, which then aligns perfectly with the sharp nasal ridge below; the forehead, as a semi-oval section placed on the top edge of the lower section so that the lower edge of the upper section becomes a deeply indented horizontal brow; the dramatically protruding cylindrical eyes that flank the high-set nasal structure and, below them, the mouth set as a rectangular block on the flat surface of the face and, producing further abstract inventiveness and surrealistic dynamic, a small metal chain is placed from both upper corners of the mouth to span rope-like across the frontal rows of kaolin-pigmented teeth..

On top of these architectural features, the colour schematic of the facial pigmentation is a wonder of abstracted design, at once controlled and radiating outwards to the perimeter of the face but also displaying a semi-expressionistic freedom of line and colour that carries beyond the physical frame of the mask - we observe the electric blue of the facial plane starkly punctuated by elements of white kaolin such as the slightly indented front edge of the eyes, where the the proper right eye is completely pigmented while the left is decorated with kaolin in ‘X’ form. 

Commenting on this mask on its appearance at the seminal 1987 exhibition at MOMA, New York, William Rubin, its former Director of Painting and Sculpture, commented, "It is one of the few cases where we know that the contemplation of a tribal object directly influenced a major modern artist in a way that the artist himself was conscious of and spoke about. I think this is a very interesting mask. The notion of the eye as a cylinder is what interested Picasso. But that is true of all Grebo masks. What makes one better than another is everything else. And this [the present mask] is a good one, a very good one." [2]

C.E.

[1] Michael Fitzgerald, ‘A Note on Western Artists’ Response to African Art’, in: Sotheby’s New York, The Saul & Marsha Stanoff Collection, May 17, 2007, p. 39

[2] William Rubin, ‘Grebo Mask’, in: Susan Vogel (ed), Perspectives: Angles on African Art, New York, 1987, p. 61

The extraordinary skull rack, or agiba, from the Kerewa peoples of Goribari Island in the Papuan Gulf was one of the stars of Frieze Masters 2018, the renowned yearly art fair in London's Regents Park.

Photographed in the Gulf Province of Papua New Guinea as early as 1930 by the anthropologist Paul Wirz [1892–1955], the skull rack can convincingly be attributed to the same master-hand of two other known agiba’s – one in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Ex. Collection Nelson A. Rockefeller, New York, and another in a private collection, Ex. Collections Thomas Schulze-Westrum (field collected), John Friede, New York, Entwistle, London and now in a private collection.

The agiba was exhibited in the seminal show 'Coaxing the Spirits to Dance: Art and Society of the Papuan Gulf of New Guinea,' held in 2006 at the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, CT, and in 2006/7 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

The skull rack is the work of the greatest graphic artists of the South Pacific – the extraordinarily crisp and animated lines were sculpted with stone-tipped tools; it is also the result of the work of lively colourists and the combination of these qualities gives this work exceptional decorative appeal notwithstanding its powerful emotive character.

The agiba seeks to exhibit the anthropomorphic figure of an ancestor while also being ingeniously surrealistic as the head element is exaggerated and the corporeal features are stretched and conflated.



 

The flat oval upper section is representative of the head, which is presented as a large ovoid form; within its perimeter sit large dark circular eyes and a large flaring nose above a pleasant mouth with upturned corners.

The facial element, which exhibits sections of kaolin pigmentation, descends down a short, wide neck of black pigmentation to the openwork structure of the body, where raised, broad shoulders outline the encased body.

The surfaces of the body are patterned in chevrons, concentric circles, arcs and undulating line motifs along the outer arm-like perimeter or in reniform shapes on the stylized torso. The pigmentation of the motifs is mostly ochre red with black highlights, both on the predominantly white kaolin of the surface.

At the lower extremity, two circular designs with dark circular motifs are found and it is from this base that emerge the functional appendages central to this figure: the skull hooks. The vertical hooks on this superb agiba terminate in convergent points from which the trophy skulls, oro or opuoro, of slain enemies would be exclusively hung with loops of rattan.

The agiba was certainly a trophy case demonstrating clan prowess in warfare but it was also a family shrine – it was housed in a clan’s allotted space within the ceremonial house, dubu daima, where the married men would sleep. The agiba was carved by a man when he took a head but other men could add skulls; a platform was often added to support this growing assemblage of skulls, which could be either plain or decorated.
C.E.

As for the past six years, Entwistle will be exhibiting remarkable historical works of art from Africa, Oceania and the Americas.

In addition, Entwistle will showcase works from some of the celebrated masters of post-war Japanese art.

By virtue of the quality and rarity of the artworks on view and the international diversity of its participants, this renowned annual fair is considered the most important fair of its kind in the world. The fair runs from Tuesday 11 to Sunday 16 September, 2018. We look forward to welcoming you to our gallery.

This year, we will be showcasing masterpieces from various African and Oceanic cultural groups, among them an exquisite tobacco mortar from the Bena Luluwa peoples of the Democratic Republic of the Congo [above].

Comme chaque année depuis 2004, la galerie Entwistle est fière d’annoncer sa participation au Parcours des Mondes, le prestigieux salon parisien dédié aux arts d’Afrique, d’Océanie, des Amériques et d’Asie.

De par la qualité, la rareté des pièces exposées et la diversité de ses participants venus du monde entier, cet événement annuel de renommée internationale apparaît comme le plus important salon au monde dans ce domaine. C’est donc avec grand plaisir que nous vous accueillerons à la galerie pour cette nouvelle édition, du mardi 11 au dimanche 16 septembre 2018.

Cette année, nous présenterons des chefs-d'œuvre de divers groupes culturels africains et océaniens, parmi lesquels un élégant mortier de tabac Bena Luluwa de la République démocratique du Congo [ci-dessus].

At our recent exhibition 'Four Masterpieces of African Art / Quatre Chefs-d'Oeuvre de l'Art Africain', we showed a Baule masterpiece, a mask (mblo) displaying an extraordinary mastery of sculptural proportions, evidenced in the sublime detail of its facial features, as well as great ingenuity in the balance of anthropomorphic and zoomorphic detail as we see the neck and heads of three birds’ heads playfully emerging from the coiffure of the mask.

The delicacy of the features on the countenance of the mask marks it as arguably the work of a master sculptor named ‘The Kamer Master’ by Bernard de Grunne in an essay devoted to the recognition of master-hands in the sculpture of the Baule peoples. In this essay, de Grunne makes reference to a famous mask representing the moon from the Udo Horstmann collection that was publicized by Jacqueline Delange in 1958 as part of the Henri Kamer collection and which shares with the present example, as well as another moon mask, the same distinctively delicate rendering of the domed forehead, eyebrows and nose.[1]

In the case of the present example, we are witnessing not only portraiture at the peak of its expressive creativity but also one of those rare cases where the delicacy of a recognized master’s touch is evidenced in one or two subtle details.

This remarkable representation of a member of the commnunity culminates, as a summation of its parts (the domed forehead and the delicate eyebrows and nose), in an ode to beauty, male or female, which, in representing one individual, represents the community by extension.

As the most refined of Baule mask forms, it is here that sculptors demonstrated their masterful skills in bringing out the idealized beauty in an individual portrait. Since these individual portraits are just that – a personalized reflection of the attributes of one member of the culture, the masks are always different, even, as Vogel states, “…when twins are shown together on the same mask…”[2]

The mask has been widely published and and celebrated at various exhibitions such as the 1989 show 'La Grande Scultura della Africa Nera' at the Forte di Belvedere, Florence; in 1998 at the Art Institute of Chicago in 'Baule: African Art Western Eyes'; at the Museum Rietberg, Zurich in 2014 in 'Afrikanische Meister. Kunst der Elfenbeinküste'; in the 2015 show 'Les Maître de la Sculpture Côte d’Ivoire' at the Musée du quai Branly, Paris; and, most recently, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in the 2017 exhibition 'The Inner Eye: Vision and Transcendence in African Arts'. CE

Entwistle will be showing four masterpieces of African art from various points on the continent, from the Ivory Coast to Gabon. These four objects share the consumate creative spirit for which the material culture of their peoples is known as well as remarkable presence and expressive power.

We welcome you to our Paris gallery at 5 rue des Beaux-Arts on Wednesday 13th June from 19:00 onwards for a champagne reception.

La galerie Entwistle présentera quatre chefs-d’œuvre de l’art africain provenant de différents pays du continent, de la Côte d’Ivoire au Gabon.

Ces quatre œuvres partagent l’art consommé de l’esprit créatif, la remarquable présence et le grand pouvoir expressif pour lesquels la culture matérielle de ces peuples est reconnue.

Nous vous accueillons dans notre galerie au 5 rue des Beaux-Arts, Paris le mercredi 13 juin à partir de 19h pour une réception au champagne

 

Entwistle recently exhibited this rare and important 19th  century ivory female figurine from the Tongan peoples of the Ha’apai Islands of Polynesia. It is one of the most sensitive interpretations of the female form in the art of the South Pacific – the subtlety with which the artist has captured the balance of volumes and sensuous contours in this idealized portrait of femininity is remarkable.

The figurine, made from sperm whale Ivory (Physeter microcephalus), can arguably be compared to an acclaimed sculpture of the female form from antiquity – between 28,000 and 25,000 BCE - known as ‘The Venus of Willendorf’, found on a site near Willendorf, a village in Lower Austria, and carved from oolitic limestone; with this figure, it shares the joyous, perhaps indulgent, contemplation of the most womanly of physical attributes as the uninhibited modelling of voluptuous modelling elevates the figure to a devotional exclamation.

The figurine, formerly in the collection of Jean-Claude Bellier, Paris, is the only known example still in private hands, with another seven figurines all in institutional collections, among them the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the British Museum, London and the Weltmuseum, Vienna. The only two twined figurines known to exist are at the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (CMAA).

With its rich ivory-amber patina, the figurine stands on two wide feet incised with the detail of toes and firmly planted on a semi-oval base. The powerful calves taper at the top to display the fold behind the knees. The wide hips and buttocks are emblematic of the fertility goddess, Hikule’o, an important deity connected with harvest and fertility with which these figures are often associated.

As the hips converge near the female sex, the graceful, slightly distended abdomen emerges with a most delicate umbilicus at its centre. The great naturalism of the small and youthful breasts are echoed in their curvature by the broad and softly squared shoulders above them. A small hole for suspension was drilled through the nape of the neck, suggesting the figure was worn as a pendant.

The delicately rounded head displays a countenance that tapers from the expansive forehead to the chin; its rudimentary features exhibit incised eyebrows that converge on a straight nasal element, which, in turn, flares to perforated nostrils. The suggestion of ocular features is rendered by subtle marks while a single horizontal incision marks the presence of the mouth, imparting a rather sombre air on the expression of the figurine. C-form auricular features face forward in attentiveness.

The figurine, measuring only 12.8 cm, was probably carved by a Tongan carver, or tufunga fonolei, more than 200 years ago. It was previously believed that before the arrival of the Christian missionaries, the islanders paid reverence to a range of gods and goddesses through small figures such as this; these figures are now thought to represent important female ancestors.

As the missionaries settled in the Tongan Islands in the early 1800s, these figurines were often destroyed or desecrated as such sculptures were seen as 'graven images.' Sometimes - for instance in the archipelago's main island, Tongatapu - new forms of worship developed combining Christian practice with older Tongan practices. In addition, a number of Tongan ivories were traded to the neighboring Fiji islands, where they were used during religious rites.

CE

We will be showcasing superb objects such as a spectacular canoe prow ornament, toto-isu or nguzunguzu, from New Georgia Island of the Solomon Islands, formely in the Pierre Langlois collection [left].

This year, we will be joined by the Barcelona-based gallerists Mercedes and David Serra, who will bring some remarkable objects to the fair, including a sublime female figure, blolo bla, from the Baule peoples of Ivory Coast, exhibited in 1971 at the Musée des beaux-arts in La Chaux-des-Fonds, Switzerland.

Pour la cinquième année, la galerie Entwistle participera à 'Paris Tribal', du 11 avril au 14 avril 2018, événement réunissant depuis 2014 les marchands d’Arts premiers du quartier de Saint-Germain.

Pour cette nouvelle édition de Paris Tribal, nous exposerons notamment, parmi une sélection de pièces africaines et océaniennes, une spectaculaire figure de proue de canoë, toto-isu ou nguzunguzu (Nouvelle Georgie, Îles Salomon) de la collection Pierre Langlois.

A cette occasion, nous sommes heureux d’accueillir au sein de la galerie les marchands barcelonais Mercedes et David Serra, qui présenteront un florilège de pièces parmi lesquelles une statue debout blolo blan baoulé (Côte d’Ivoire), exposé en 1971 au Musée des beaux-arts in La Chaux-des-Fonds, Suisse.

Entwistle will be exhibiting remarkable historical works of art from Africa, Oceania and the Americas such as the remarkable sperm-whale ivory female figurine from the Tongan Islands of Polynesia (see image). An acclaimed sculpture of the female form from antiquity, it is the last remaining example in private hands in the known corpus of eight such figurines. 

In addition, Entwistle will  also showcase at this celebrated art fair works from some of the most renowned masters of post-war Asian art - Hisao Domoto, Lee Ufan and Waichi Tsutaka.