20 Island Southeast Asian & Oceanic Treasures in the Fowler Museum at UCLA
20 Island Southeast Asian & Oceanic Treasures in the Fowler Museum at UCLA
Curated by Steven G. Alpert
Los Angeles' Fowler Museum is well known to aficionados of traditional or 'tribal' art. As a teaching university museum, its collections are part of a broader program of publications, exhibitions, fieldwork, and research. Established in its present form in 1963, the Fowler Museum's vast collection stewards more than 120,000 historical and contemporary pieces, along with some 600,000 archaeological items. UCLA is also home to Sir Henry Welcome and the Wellcome Trust's large assemblage of 30,000 items. Wellcome (1853-1936) was an early pharmaceutical entrepreneur whose British-based company sold medicines throughout the empire. As Wellcome developed his business, he also advanced his interest in acquiring medical specimens, conducting research, and collecting ethnographical items, many of which ended up in the Fowler Museum, forming the basis of this outstanding collection.
Under the careful and elevated curatorship of George Ellis, the Fowler was one of the first postwar museums to acquire Indonesian art in the 1970s seriously. In those days, Los Angeles was a mecca for traditional art, and a number of local collectors like Helen and Robert Kuhn, Saul Stanoff, and Jay Last are deservedly legendary. Among the city's collectors, and at the encouragement of Helen Kuhn, Jerry Joss, a retired advertising executive, began to collect Indonesian art. The Jerome L. Joss collection forms the backbone of the Fowler's holdings in this area. Its most iconic piece is a Bahau-Modang, or Bahau Sa'a carved wooden panel (X87-88). This is a wonderful second half of the 19th-century carving that depicts two protective beings mounted one on top of the other. It was said to have once been attached as a post to a chief's large granary storage bin. It comes from the Mahakam river basin in central/east Borneo. A closely related panel that came out of Borneo together with the Joss example recently sold for a record sum for an Island Southeast Asian item (1,962,000 euros in Christie's October sale of the Caput collection in Paris) in recognition of its aesthetics and rarity.
Among the other noteworthy Joss pieces illustrated here are two compelling Toraja doors. One is a rare figurative Sa'dan Toraja tomb door (X86.3132). The other depicts an Asiatic water buffalo (tedong), which is one of the finest Toraja inner house doors extant. It once graced an elaborate chief's dwelling or tongkonan (X85.1073). Both are carved in deep relief. The flaring nostrils, cocked head, and alert ears of the buffalo door are particularly unusual and finely conceived. Another oft-reproduced item is a stone ai tos or columnar post to honor one's ancestors from the Belu (Tetum) people of the Island of Timor. As many of the museum's pieces from this collection are not yet online, we recommend J. Feldman's Arc of the Ancestors, Indonesian Art From the Jerome L. Joss Collection at UCLA, a fine compact catalog on the collection and region in general.
To celebrate the breadth of the Fowler Museum's material, a number of outstanding pieces are reproduced here that span Island Southeast Asia, Taiwan, and the Western Pacific's Rim to include Melanesia and Polynesia.
From Indonesia and the Wellcome Trust, there's a well-articulated row of ancestor figures, adu zatua (X65.5179), and an early Iban effigy (X65.5653) of a hornbill, or kenyalang from Sarawak, north Borneo (East Malaysia). Items from the Philippines and Taiwan are also included, highlighted by an outstanding example of an antique storage bin for millet from the Rukai peoples of Taiwan that honors in a united circle of dancing figures the house's ancestors and their origin stories (X65.8157).
The collection also features accomplished free-standing figures ranging from a large male statue that once graced the entrance to a house in the Admiralty Islands (X65.4990) to a very rare stone adzed Biwat ancestor figure from Papua New Guinea (65.1115). In the realm of masks, we have included two favorites, a fanciful Elima bark cloth mask (65.4344) and a superbly theatrical mask from New Caledonia with its complete bindings and train composed of wood, feathers, and human hair. Such masks were said to be the dwelling place where the essence of heroic souls was commingled with a chosen deity and a specific water spirit (X65.7799).
Lastly, a rather stunning 19th-century Maori flax and feather cloak, a Kākahu, from Rotorua, a village in the center of the North Island of New Zealand (X65.8009), much like the finest sculptural works, is eye-fetching and has a gem-like quality to it. Its deep orange feathers from a kaka parrot's underwing are perfectly paired with fine taniko woven borders to radiate power and prestige.
When in Los Angeles, visiting the Fowler Museum and its revolving exhibitions is always de rigueur, always a pleasure.
— Steven G. Alpert, founder of Art of the Ancestors
1
Male Figure
Admiralty Islands,
Papua New Guinea
19th-early 20th century
Wood, pigment
Fowler Museum at UCLA.
Gift of the Wellcome Trust.
X65.4990
2
Decorative Panel for Chief’s Doorway
Bahau peoples
Mahakam River, East Kalimantan (Borneo), Indonesia
19th century
Wood
Fowler Museum at UCLA.
The Jerome L. Joss Collection.
X87.8
3
House Door with Carved Buffalo
Toraja peoples
South Sulawesi, Indonesia
Early to mid-20th century
Carved and painted wood
Fowler Museum at UCLA.
The Jerome L. Joss Collection.
X85.1073
4
Figurative Tomb Door
Sa’dan Torajan peoples
Rabung, Sulawesi, Indonesia
19th or early 20th century
Wood, paint, bone
Fowler Museum at UCLA.
The Jerome L. Joss Collection.
X86.3132
5
Mask
Murik peoples
Sepik Coastal Region,
East Sepik Province,
Papua New Guinea
19th century or earlier
Wood, pigment
Fowler Museum at UCLA.
Gift of Dr. and Mrs. George Kennedy.
X63.665
6
Feathered Cloak
Whakaue Maori peoples
Rotorua District, Aotearoa
Pre-1883
Harakeke, wool, feathers; double-pair weft twining, Taniko weft twining
Fowler Museum at UCLA.
Gift of the Wellcome Trust
X65.8009
7
Ancestors Figures | Adu Zatua
North Nias Island, Indonesia
Collected before 1907
Wood, plant fiber
Fowler Museum at UCLA.
Gift of the Wellcome Trust.
X65.5679
8
Eharo Mask
Elema peoples
Papuan Gulf, Papua New Guinea
Early 20th century
Barkcloth, plant fiber, wood, human hair, paint, feathers
Gift of the Wellcome Trust.
X65.4344
9
Carved Storage Container for Millet
Rukai peoples
Taiwan
19th to early 20th century
Wood, rattan
Fowler Museum at UCLA.
Museum purchase.
X65.8157
10
Ceremonial House Board
Papuan Gulf, Papua New Guinea
19th-20th century
Wood, pigment
Gift of the Wellcome Trust
X65.5296
11
Mask
New Caledonia, Melanesia
19th century
Wood, barkcloth, human hair, feathers, bamboo, cotton thread, plant fiber
Fowler Museum at UCLA.
Gift of the Wellcome Trust.
X65.7799
12
Ancestral Spirit Figure
Biwat peoples
Yuat River, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea
19th century or earlier
Wood, shells, beads, plant fiber
Fowler Museum at UCLA.
Gift of the Wellcome Trust.
X67.1115
13
Figurative House Panel
Paiwan peoples
Taiwan
Early 20th century
Wood, porcelain, bottle caps
Fowler Museum at UCLA.
The H.P. and J.F. Ullman Collection.
X72.833
14
Ceremonial Cloth | Tampan
Rusaba, Pedada, Lampung, Sumatra, Indonesia
Probably mid-to late 19th century
Cotton
Fowler Museum at UCLA.
Donated by Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Deutsch.
X76.1395
15
Figure
Malagan
New Ireland, Bismarck Archipelago,
Papua New Guinea
19th-early 20th century
Wood, pigment, plant fiber, shell, resin
Fowler Museum at UCLA. Gift of Dorothy M. Cordry in memory of Donald B. Cordry.
X84.166
16
Seated Guardian Figure with Ritual Box | Punamham
Ifugao peoples
Cambulo District,
Northern Luzon, Philippines
19th century
Wood
Fowler Museum at UCLA.
Gift of Mrs. W. Thomas Davis.
X85.443ab
17
Stone Sacrificial Post
Tetun peoples
Dafala, Belu, West Timor, Indonesia
Probably 19th century or earlier
Stone
Fowler Museum at UCLA.
The Jerome L. Joss Collection.
X86.3137
18
Pestle for a Betel Mortar
Indonesia
Horn and iron
20th century
Fowler Museum at UCLA.
Museum Purchase.
X94.24.13
19
Sacred House Door Divider | Ampang Bilik
Sa’dan Toraja Peoples
South Sulawesi, Indonesia
Early to mid-20th century
Carved and painted wood
Anonymous gift.
X94.57.1a-h
20
Hornbill Figure | Kenyalang
Iban peoples
Sarawak, Borneo, Malaysia
19th to early 20th century
Wood, paint, cotton thread, plant material, wool
Fowler Museum at UCLA.
Gift of the Wellcome Trust.
X65.5653
All artworks and images presented in this feature are the property of the Fowler Museum at UCLA.
© The Fowler Museum at UCLA