HELENA RUBINSTEIN, Madame's collection

239pp., 4to., b/w & colour illus., paperback, Paris, 2019

Published to accompany the exhibition, Galerie Marc Lacharriére of the Musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac, Paris, November 2019 - June 2020.

A selection from Polish-American cosmetics entrepreneur Helena Rubinstein’s (1872-1965) African and Oceanic art collections.

Following her death, the collections were sold at several auctions. Hélène Joubert led an investigation into Rubinstein’s collection and succeeded in identifying and documenting nearly half of the 400 artifacts, 65 of which are reproduced in this volume.

Includes Kota and Fang reliquaries, masks from the Ivory Coast and the “Bangwa Queen” statuette made famous in the West by photographer Man Ray.

Contributions include:

"Recollections of the Helena Rubinstein Sale of African and Oceanic Art" by David Nash

"Madame's Collection: Africa at its heart" by Hélène Joubert

"Frederic-Henri Lem's Mid-twentieth-century Case for African Art and Its Study" by Susan Elizabeth Gagliardi

"Equatorial African Treasures From the Rubenstein Collection" by Charlotte Grand-Dufay.

Hélène Joubert is Head of the African Heritage Unit at the Musée du quai Branly.