Well Worn Djimini Heddle Pulley

This a well worn figurative pulley that combines, in classic Djimini fashion, the human face and characteristic boss and horns of a savannah buffalo. Catherine Cline (née Crone, 1935-2020) began collecting African art in the early 1960s in New York City through a friend, Thomas McNemar, then freshly back in the United States from years in Cote d’Ivoire. McNemar’s tenure in West Africa had been devoted to field collecting. His specialty was heddle pulleys, of which he amassed a collection of several hundred, in addition to the ones he sold to the likes of JJ Klejman, Julius Carlebach and, indirectly, Harold Rome. According to an auction label on the underside of its base, this example was acquired by Cline in the early 1990s after she had married architect and lighting designer Carroll Cline (1927-2000). A graduate of the University of Chicago and the Illinois Institute of Technology, Katherine began her career as a costume designer for theater before refocusing her energies as a fiber and book artist. She was an avid collector of small, mostly utilitarian objects of exceptional form. $700

5″

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