In an unusual first for the art world, a London auction house announced on Wednesday it will sell a series of abstract paintings by a chimpanzee, Congo, once feted as the “Cezanne of the ape world”.
Congo became famous in the late 1950s when his swirling works, described by critics as a form of abstract expressionism, were exhibited in London, in a show curated by British anthropologist and author Desmond Morris.
Morris, who had featured the young chimpanzee on a television show, became convinced that Congo and apes could understand elements of art.
Three works by Congo from 1957, when he was aged three, are being sold by Bonhams auction house alongside items by pop artist Andy Warhol and French Impressionist Auguste Renoir in a sale of modern and contemporary art on June 20.
The lot containing Congo’s three pieces is expected to fetch up to £800 (R9 296).
“I would sincerely doubt that chimpanzee art has ever been auctioned before,” said Howard Rutkowski, director of modern and contemporary art at Bonhams.
“I don’t think anybody else has been crazy enough to do this. I’m sure other auction houses think this is completely mad.
“This might put Congo in the pantheon.”
Picasso is said to have framed one of Congo’s works on a wall in his studio after being given it as a gift.
Those who insist the ape was a legitimate artist note that once he learned to handle a brush and pencils — rather than trying to eat them — he always painted within the boundaries of the paper and appeared to know when he had finished a work.
“Paintings by apes may be seen as humorous or as a derisive commentary on modern art,” the Bonhams catalogue explains.
“However, Morris’s studies were a serious attempt to understand chimpanzees’ ability to create order and symmetry as well as to explore, at a more primeval level, the impetus behind our own desires for artistic creativity.” — AFP