Heritage The Alan Kessler Collection
Of American Indian Art
Auction | October 14
View All Lots and Bid at HA.com/8107
A Selection Of Lots To Be Offered

DALLAS — In 1997, the hammer came down at $265,000 at a New York auction for a Hopi kachina doll, by far the highest price paid for this type of traditional hand-carved figure. Up to that point, the highest price at auction for a kachina (or katsina) doll was $20,000. The man who consigned that valuable doll was Alan Kessler, and it would be fair to say that with the sale, the veteran collector “made the market” in kachina figures.

Kessler will again offer extraordinary pieces from his collection to the auction market, this time at Heritage Auctions’ Alan Kessler Collection Ethnographic Art Signature® Auction on October 14. The market for katsinam has exploded in recent years, and Kessler’s collection at Heritage offers a once-in-a-generation collecting opportunity for enthusiasts of the katsina carving tradition.

Katsina dolls and figures have been exchanged within tribes of the Pueblo region of the Southwest for centuries, but our modern appreciation for the figures emerged around the turn of the last century. This coincided with the earliest commercial examples of katsinam offered to the public. American and European museums, as well as established artists then recognized the essential significance of these figures and began collecting them.

It was a 1970 exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York that launched traditional Pueblo carvings into “the realm of art” as we understand it today. The katsina tradition holds a special place in the hearts of working artists and has for more than a century. Kessler himself, who is based in Santa Fe, is an established artist with a long exhibition history in New York City and beyond.

Many of Kessler’s offerings at Heritage are early and pre-commercial and are therefore highly valuable examples. One of the most extraordinary pieces is an early Hopi polychrome wood dance figure, circa 1890, facing off with a coiled rattlesnake. This is the only known example of a snake-dancing figure with a separate snake. The figure wears a fringed buffalo-hide sash emblazoned with a serpent; his stylized head sports naturalist features and “secular” eyes. The little snake looks up into the dancer’s face, hypnotized by his gaze.

Another significant offering is an extremely rare Zia wood figure; very few carvings have come from this Pueblo. This secular-eyed beauty shows a toothy smile and holds a pottery canteen, and she wears a finely knotted string sash. Kessler has said that she is the only known carving of this type from the Pueblo.

In this auction, the Zia figure keeps company with a number of polychrome figures and katsinam from Zuni and Hopi Pueblos, as well as Navajo, many dating back to the earlier part of the last century and stretching back into the late 1800s, some carved by the famed Wilson Tawaquaptewa. There’s even a charming and boldly striped horned katsina puppet, a Hano Clown or Koshare, attributed to Jimmy Kootz and dating back to 1903.

The auction will be conducted online and in-person at 2801 West Airport Freeway. For information, www.ha.org or 214-528-3500.

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Delia Sullivan | ext. 1343 | DeliaS@HA.com
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