Contemporary African Art World Record - Christmas 2020
Odundo vase achieves record for single work by living potter at Maak auction
London studio pottery specialist Maak achieved a record £200,000 (plus 20% buyer’s premium) for this vessel by Madgalene Odundo (b.1950).
Roland Arkell
30 Nov 2020
Angled Mixed Coloured Piece by Madgalene Odundo, signed and dated 1988 – £200,000 at Maak.
The 15in (37cm) hand-built and burnished earthenware and terracotta form titled Angled Mixed Coloured Piece is signed and dated 1988 and was bought that year from the Candover Gallery in Alresford, Hampshire.
It assumes the colouring and form of Odundo’s most famous pieces, with a bulbous base and elongated neck reminiscent of a pregnant woman.
Estimated at £30,000-40,000 at the sale on November 19, it attracted 53 bids before selling at a house-record sum to ‘an international Modern and Contemporary art foundation’.
Relatively rare appearance
Works by the Kenya-born potter, who has spent much of her life in Surrey, are relatively rare on the market compared with those of her contemporaries.
An exhibition of more than 50 pieces in 2019 titled The Journey of Things ran at The Hepworth Wakefield and the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich.
The previous record for Odundo was the €156,000 (plus 25% premium) bid at a Sotheby’s Paris sale of African and Oceanic art in 2015 for a similar but larger 20in (50cm) vessel from 1994.
While the price falls short of the auction record for studio pottery (£305,000 for a Hans Coper ‘arrow head’ vessel at Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood in 2018), it does represent a record for a single work by a living ceramic artist.
