Hewett, Kenneth John (1919 - 1994)
Titles
Mr.
Description
Kenneth John Hewett was born in Ealing, West London. He first worked as a bookseller. After the war he bought a small shop in Richmond, South London, and soon after moved to Sydney Street off of King’s Road. He became a dealer in ethnographic art and antiquities, and started working with other dealers such as Sydney Bernard Burney (the first dealer to exhibit modern art alongside ‘tribal art’... Read more
Kenneth John Hewett was born in Ealing, West London. He first worked as a bookseller. After the war he bought a small shop in Richmond, South London, and soon after moved to Sydney Street off of King’s Road. He became a dealer in ethnographic art and antiquities, and started working with other dealers such as Sydney Bernard Burney (the first dealer to exhibit modern art alongside ‘tribal art’ in London between the wars), who gave him items to sell. He also dealt with Peter Wilson, chairman of Sotheby’s, and the dealer John Hunt. He and his wife were friends with the patrons and collectors Lisa & Robert Sainsbury.
He is known as a major influence on collectors of antiquities and ‘tribal art’ from the 1950s to the 1980s. He had varied clients, and in the 1950s and 1960s was selling to museums in the UK and US. He also worked with John J. Klejman to offer items to museums as an intermediary.
Hewett sold a number of pieces from the Kingdom of Benin, as he played an important role in the dispersal of Augustus Henry Pitt-Rivers’s holdings, which provided him with some of his most important items, including the Benin Bronzes from the collection.
A rare Benin ivory Uhunmwu-Ẹkuẹ (Pendant Mask) from the Pitt-Rivers collection (now in the Katherine White Reswick collection, Seattle) was with him for fifteen years before he sold it to the American dealer John Wise, who became his partner across the Atlantic. Hewett also sold a Benin Bronze Uhunmwu-Elao (Commemorative Head), identified as the ‘bulgy eyes’ head, from the Pitt-Rivers collection to George Ortiz (King & Waterfield, 2006, 151-165).
Places of contact
London, UKEdo designations
English designations
Categories
Institutions
Provenance names
22 objects
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