In the late 1990s, I was pleased to meet director Jonathan Demme, maker of Silence of the Lambs, Married to the Mob and Philadelphia, among other movies, and to listen to him talk about his collecting of Haitian art. He preparing for an exhibition of more than 100 works drawn from his collection at the gallery at Equitable Center. I wrote about him and the exhibition for The New York Times in an article headlined A Convert Spreads the Word for Haitian Art.
Demme quickly became known as the owner of one of the most, if not the most, comprehensive collections of Haitian art in the U.S. Now, though, he and his collection are back in the news because he’s selling it — well, about 90% of it. According to an AP story published in the Washington Post,
More than 900 pieces — many of them by artists with little or no formal training but abundant talent — will be auctioned at Philadelphia’s Material Culture on March 29-30. The sale will be preceded by a weeklong exhibition that is free and open to the public….
Demme, whose collection includes many pieces produced at the Centre d’Art, the landmark Port-au-Prince art cooperative destroyed in the 2010 earthquake, said he plans to donate a portion of the proceeds to the rebuilding effort. The auction is expected to bring in $1 million to $1.4 million.
Demme is OK with letting go of his treasures, comparing himself to a parent sending his kids to college. “You’re going to miss having them around, but they are making the right journey. This work is leaving storage and my walls and going out to find new homes.â€
Demme had an eye for this kind of art. He fell into it by happenstance, and then he made his instinctual reaction to Haitian art into a quest for the best, in his eyes — like all good collectors.
My first thought on hearing of the auction was, how horrible — why not donate it to a museum? Or at least some of it? But then I began to wonder: what museum would take it? That’s very unclear to me.