Lot 2 Dα

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 was first exposed to African Art. From Paris he also made a number of trips to North Africa. 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 purchasing works at the sale. Certainly all 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 portaits in his oeuvre it is perhaps not surprising that Dan and We masks were such an important focus of his collecting. A number of his masks were loaned to the important exhibition, Kunst von Schwarz Afrika, held in Zurich in 1970. Almost all his masks were exhibited in St. Gallen in 1933 in the exhibition Transozeanische und Negerkunst aus St. Galler Privatbesitz and many at the Rietberg Museum exhibition Masken der Wè und Dan - Elfenbeinküste.