I didn’t see a lot of Fon material available in galleries but it just so happened that very close friends of mine had a substantial collection of lots of things, African figures included. They knew about my interest in bocio figures and recommended that I meet a dealer that they’d been working with for many years, Jacques Hautelet.

I called Jacques and told him the kind of pieces that I wanted. He sent me his C.V. listing everything he’d done and been involved with. Among his clients were the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET), the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago., he also came with a recommendation letter from Susan Vogel. He told me on the phone that he didn’t like to deal with more than 20 collectors, anything more made it difficult to find pieces for his clients. So I knew that this was a man I could trust.

I told Jacques what I was interested in, anything with a messy, fetishistic quality. He said that he had never, in his 40-year career as a dealer, had anyone ask him for that kind of material. He explained how he worked—he would send me pictures, along with full provenance information of the objects that he’d identified and that I would have to decide, based on the photographs alone, if I wanted the piece or not. I could not return the pieces once delivered. That process really sharpened my ability to pick things.

Following our initial conversation, Jacques told me to give him two months, and that he would take it as a personal challenge to find what he could in old European collections. Three weeks later, a package came in the mail and in the parcel were images of seven figures. In that first shipment, two of the figures were of equal quality to those at the Museum for African Art exhibition but I ended up keeping all seven pieces.

And that’s how Jacques and I continued to work together until I stopped the collection about 10 years ago for two primary reasons: first is that I no longer have room in apartment, I didn’t want my home, and place of business, to look like it belonged to a hoarder and second, I’m a man of very modest means. I didn’t plan to put huge amounts of money into the collection. I did buy some things at 30K USD but a lot of the pieces were well under 10K USD.

I’d say that I depended on Jacques for a good percentage of my collection but once I felt comfortable with bocio figures, and if I could find things I liked at art fairs, then I’d usually just go for it. I’ve bought a few things at auction too, so the collection isn’t entirely built on advice from Jacques.

I remember turning a few things down based on the pictures that Jacques had sent me. Once in a while he got upset with me and told me that I’d missed the point. Occasionally I listened and I’ve grown to love those honest pieces. I think all real African art is very honest. These are straightforward pieces made by some of the poorest ethnic groups in the West African region. Who are the Fon? They were a group of people kidnapped by Benin and shipped across to Haiti, Brazil, Louisiana, and the coast of South Carolina. That’s how Voodoo developed in the Americas, in Fon culture it’s called vodun. These objects were all meant for curative purposes. The only evil figures with malicious intent that I own are two kafigueledio Senufo figures associated with black magic.