Saturday, March 25th, 2017 Please note Quinn's website / Highbid is an absentee only bidding platform. Please contact us by email (info@quinnsauction.com) or by phone at 703-532-5632 for options to bid live.
Patterns of Collecting: The Ethnographic Collections of John Woodall, William Leazer & William Swann, and others Saturday, March 25, 2017, 11:00am Quinn's Auction Galleries March 25th Ethnographic Art Auction features, among others, the works of three collectors, John Woodall, William Leazer and William Swann, who approached collecting in separate and distinct ways. Through their artwork one can see just how personal collecting can be and how fascinating these different approaches often are. John Woodall began his life in the arts as performance artist in Northern California during the 1970s and quickly became immersed in the Native American culture of the area. Woodall literally became a part of his collection spending time with the Hupa people learning to weave baskets in their distinct style. For Woodall, collecting became a process of sharing a lifestyle and experiencing the cultures from within. Understanding this helps us appreciate why he collected what he did. A unique collection, with a wide scope, Woodall's items reflect the special journey he took to obtaining and learning about them. Equally fascinating, William Leazer and his partner William Swann worked together for over forty years to create their collection as they traveled the United States, Mexico, Central America, and South America. For them, each item became a part of a personal scrapbook of the life they shared together. Each object bringing back a memory from the past as they enjoyed the artwork in the present for its aesthetic merits in the home they created. The artwork from both gentlemen proves there is no right way of collecting. It is the joy experienced on the personal level that out weights the external art criticism that is so often placed on the shoulders of collectors. Quinn's Auction Galleries is proud to offer a vast array of objects from these collections that bring together the work of many cultures and the memories of how they were collected and cherished. The auction features Pre-Columbian pottery and texties, Native American beadwork, baskets, models, textiles, and more, Central and South American artwork such as retablos, pottery, Santos figures, and mask, African tribal arts including textiles, masks, headdress, and implements, and Oceanic and South East Asian ethnographic art and objects among others.