DAN MASK

DAN MASK

Ivory Coast

21.5 cm. high Provenance

Charles Hug (1899-1979), no.45 Exhibitions

St. Gallen, Industrie-und Gewerbemuseum, Transozeanische und Negerkunst aus St. Galler Privatbesitz, May/June 1933

Rietberg Museum, Zurich, Masken der Wè und Dan - Elfenbeinküste, 1997 Literature

Homberger, L., Masken der Wè und Dan – Elfenbeinküste, Zurich, 1997, p.71, no.39.

IVORY COAST MASKS FROM THE CHARLES HUG COLLECTION

Charles Hug was born in St. Gallen in 1899 and at the age of 22 began his career as an artist, firstly in Berlin and from 1926 in Paris, where he first became aware of African Art. In 1931 he attended the exhibition of the sale of the Georges de Miré collection in Paris, making sketches of the works exhibited and possibly acquiring works at the sale. Certainly all the masks in his collection were acquired between 1929 and 1932 in Paris. In 1934 Hug returned to Switzerland and settled in Zurich. He does not seem to have acquired any further masks but those he had acquired in Paris in his youth remained a constant presence throughout his life and an inspiration in his work. Given the prominence of portraits in his oeuvre it is perhaps not surprising that Dan and We masks were such an important focus of his collecting.

Almost all his masks were exhibited in St. Gallen in 1933 in the exhibition "Transozeanische und Negerkunst aus St. Gallen Privatbesitz" and many at the Rietberg Museum exhibition "Masken der Wè und Dan – Elfenbeinküste".