African Art Club

 September 1978 Irwin Hershey started  for five years the Primitive Art Newsletter that was a paid membership newsletter sended by post. In his  volume 1, no. 2 edition of october 1978, he gave us some interesting tips and asked some good questions about provenance. His observations are still valuable today.

What Price Provenance ?

first published in the Primitive Art Newsletter  by Irwin Hershey, Editor and publisher Volume 1, No.2 October 1978

    With primitive art prices seemingly reaching highs every time you look around, provenances are growing more and more important to collectors who want to make sure the objects they’re buying are authentic and good quality .

    But does this a provenance actually insure this ?

    Experts are unanimous in their judgment that provenance do not authenticate objects, nor are they a guarantee of quality. As one expert put it”, “ALL a provenance means is that a piece was in a certain collection, or was exhibited someplace. Who owned a piece, and who bought it from him later, or the fact that it was exhibited, may not mean a thing, unless the collector involved had a first rate collection, and the piece itself is a first-rate piece. And this is seldom the case.”

Arts d’Afrique Noire recently provided a perfect example of how dangerous it is to trust the fact that an object has been exhibited – or published – in the past.

    In a recent issue, Editor Raoul Lehuard wrote that a recent Salon des Independents exhibit in Paris marking the 70th anniversary of the birth of cubism, which included the works of the most famous masters of the School -Picasso, Braque, Leger, etc.-also exhibited some African sculpture.

    While one object among the almost 50 shown-an old piece from Braque’s collection- was unquestionably authentic, all of the others, whch came from a private dealer-collector, were, in Lehuard’s words, either ” of themost mediocre quality, or completely fake.”

And yet, as he noted, all these objects now have an impeccable provenance, having been shown in a major exhibit of the Salon des Independents.

No doe the story end there. Until that point, the owner of the objets had merely taken advantage of the kind of complacence about primitive art we’re all familiar with, and, had the objets simply be returned to him at the end of the show and never surfaced again, we would all simply have shrugged our shoulders and let it go at that.

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Provenance Do’s and Don’ts

Paying extra for a provenance makes good sense if what you are buying is a good provenance.
Here are a few questions to ask yourself before you decide whether the provenance you’re buying is of any real value:

• Is there collection data on the object? In writing? Can you independently confirm it? 
• Is there an expertise on the object? In writing? Who write it? Can you independently confirm it? 
• Is the collection or collections from which it purports to come well-known? If so, is there any indication as to when, why and how the object was disposed of ? In writing?
• If the object was exhibited, is there proof that this is, in fact, the same object? (This is particularly important if the object was not illustrated). How important was the exhibit in which it apppeared? How were the objects selected? And by whom?
• If the object was published, who wrote the book (or catalogue, or article), and who was responsible for the selection of the objects illustrated? Is there proof that this is, in fact, the object that was illustrated?

If all- or at least most – of these questions can be answered to your satisfaction, the chances are good that the provenance you’re getting is worth the extra money you’re paying for it.

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Unfortunately, however, they did surface again. As Lehuard noted, shortly after the exhibit ended, the pieces turned up in a gallery in Lyon, along with a notice that the objects had been exhibited at the Salon des Independents !

    Lehuard said he was publishing the story to warn people who might have been convinced to buy the pieces by their impeccable pedigree, and these days we know all collectors who need that kind of assurance before they will buy.

    Unfortunaletely, many such collectors are today only buying provenance. The danger is that there are many ways an object can acquire a provenance, not all of the legal. Not only can objects get into important shows, as in the case cited by Lehuard, but rich and powerful collectors obviously have a strong say in what is exhibited and what is published. And, of course, a convincing provenance is one of the easiest thing in the world to fake.

    So the questions arises: How much is a provenance worth? Does it add 10% to the value of an object? 20%? 50%? 100%?

The answer is that no one can tell you, because in the final analysis, it is the beauty of the object, and the judgment and taste of the collector, which matter, and not the object’s pedigree. And, as we have already noted, buying by pedigree alone can be a fool’s game.

This is not to say, of course, tha a good provenance doesn’t add to the value of an object, because it obviously do so. However, the operative word here is good.

In other word, the valuable provenance must do one with all the things we referred to earlier. That is, it must provide proofeither that the objectwas collected in the field, or thatit was purchased some time ago, when there were few or no fakes around; and/or that it was exhibited in an important show or shows;and/or that it has been published in a serious publication or publications.

   Obviously, there are some cautions to be observed about provenance (see box above this page). As we have already noted, provenances are ridiculously easy to fake, particularly with regard to prior ownership. All it takes is a piece of authentic-looking stationary, and even this can be deceiving because it costs only a ffew dollars to have an impressive-looking letterhead printed.

Consequently it’s always wise to examine provenance carefully and, if at all possible, to confirm any information contained therein independently. Again, the biggest problems come with prior ownership claims, which is often difficultto check out because the collectors who are supposed to have owned the pieces way back when having have frequently long since passed on.

There can be much the same problem with regard to the origins of an object . Again checking on the exact date of an object was collected, or purchased, can be difficult. And again, also it’s not all difficult to fake such information, particularly when the collection or purchase-date is well in the past.

    It is obviously considerably more difficult to fake exhibit or catalogue or book information. Difficult, yes; impossible, no. There have been cases in which objects similar to those exhibited, but not photographed, in important shos have been replaced with similar objects, of much the same size and physical characteristics. And, of course, it is not at all unknown for copies tobe made of objects which have been illustrated in important books or catalogues.

    In other words, provenance are important – when they are what they purport to be. However, the wise collector make it his business to see that all the information given in the provenance is, first, in writting and second, that it can be checked out independently.

    Failure to do so these days, when provenances can add considerable sum to the cost of an object, is not only reckless, but foolhardy.