COLLECTIONS: Barbara Porter & Robert Wincuinas

For our latest auction preview, Public Sale’s showroom will transform into a temporary museum of Folk Art and Outsider Art, with a trove of items from the collection of Barbara Porter & Robert Wincuinas.

Robert and Barbara started creating their own handcrafted items early in life, making woven items and wooden toys. While Robert opened a shop to sell his wares with his then girlfriend, Barbara went on to persue her degree in Textile Design and deepen her training in weaving application as an apprentice of a master silk weaver in Japan for two years. After Barbara returned and as the business changed and grew, they found they needed more unusual inventory to supplement their own work, so they started looking further afield than their New England home. Robert and Barbara’s interests led them to travel and work for many years in Africa, Europe, Asia and the Americas. Over the years, the pair had gathered a wide network of friends and contacts in a host of countries who helped them discover the work of local artisans. They were particularly drawn to the work of people without formal training or professional experience, and their deep appreciation for handicraft, informed by their own experience as makers, eventually translated into an impressive collection of Folk Art from around the world. For our “Inside Out” auction, with an emphasis on Outsider Art and Folk Art paired with outside furnishings, we’re honored to be able to offer a glimpse into this unique collection.

Visitors to Public Sale’s Hudson showroom during our weeklong preview period will be immersed in an installation of human eclecticism and visual splendor not unlike Santa Fe’s Folk Art Museum, which houses the singular collection of Mid-Century textile designer Alexander Girard. Also like Girard’s collection, this one includes a few “originals” made by Wincuinas, representing notable figures from a collector’s life history and embodying a love for the tradition of the handcrafted. With so many items having been in storage for decades, and most of them never before publicly displayed, the auction preview becomes a kind of pop-up exhibition—a rare opportunity to see in one place such a concentration of human creativity.

The collection features objects from South America (Haiti, Mexico, Brazil, and Guatemala), Asia and Oceania (India, China, Thailand, Indonesia, New Guinea, and the Philippines). and Africa (Ethiopia, Kenya, and Zambia). There are examples of work by the Huichol people of Northern Jalisco and Nayarit, Mexico, known for their yarn painting, and the Chokew people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia. There are also pieces by known artists like Mississippi wood carver George Williams, Kenyan soapstone sculptor John Obaso Dian’a, and Massachusetts artist Marjorie Moore, as well as pieces by the countless anonymous makers whose work carries on the rich traditions of Folk Art.

The auction will take place at noon on Saturday April 23rd, on the Public Sale app as well as the online platforms LiveAuctioneers, Invaluable, and AuctionZip. In-person preview will be held from Saturday April 16th through Friday April 22nd, from 10am to 5pm, and Saturday April 23rd 10am to 12pm, in our showroom at 90 Green St. in Hudson, NY.