History of the first collector of African art in Switzerland, a man called Han Coray (1880-1974) but also known as Karl Heinrich Ulrich Anton Coray, Han Coray-Stoop and Heinrich Corray. Prototype of the self-made man, he was able to collect thousands of precious sculptures and objects from all over the Dark Continent without been there: a strange fate for a man who intensely loved Africa.

A difficult childhood, the redemption, the pedagogical career

Han was born in eastern Switzerland by a doctor and a nurse. At the death of his mother, Han was entrusted to St. Gallen orphanage. He attended the evangelical institute of Unterstrass in Zurich and received his license to teach. He worked as a primary school teacher and tutor and then as major of two private schools Zurich. At the age of thirty, Han Coray – then called Heinrich Corray – was considered an innovator in the field of education.

Point of reference of Zurich culture

The thing that assured him notoriety was the activity as a gallerist from 1916 in Zurich: his business acumen and the ability to interpret times led him to expose great French artists such as Gauguin and Van Gogh, avant-gardists such Kandinsky and Klee and many Dadaists. Coray in those years was the reference point for avant-garde and Dadaist cultures: between his friends who frequented his gallery there were Arp, Janco, Lehmbruck, Tzara, Richter and the two founders of the Cabaret Voltaire, Ball and Hennings.

It was during the inaugural exhibition of Dada (1917) that Heinrich took in Switzerland, first of all, the so-called “black art”. Unfortunately, an economic crisis followed and he was forced to close the gallery because of accumulated debts, thus dedicating himself to the business of books.

From 1917 to 1919 he was a merchant of books and art. His library became an effervescent intellectual meeting place. Here Han met many young Swiss artists such as Johann von Tscharner, Max Gubler and Ignaz Epper who were also financially supported by him.

The collection of African art

After his marriage in 1919 with a rich Dutch, Dorrie Stoop, Han began an intense activity as a collector. Dorrie was the daughter of an engineer who made his fortune in the petroleum industry; thanks to the vast economic resources of his wife, Han Coray-Stoop accumulated an immense treasure of art that included works of European art from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century. He also had a large collection of sculptures and African items purchased mostly from Paul Guillaume, Parisian art dealer and expert on African art and culture, known thanks to the common friendship with Tristan Tzara.

In 1928, Han owned about 2,400 pieces of black art from Guro and Dan cultures (Cote d’Ivoire); Benin (Nigeria); Fang (Gabon); Yombe (Congo); Mangbetu, Yaka, Pende, League, Kuba, Luba and Songye (Zaire); and Chokwe (Angola). Thanks to this treasure, Han became the first Swiss collector of African art, and set up a private museum in a villa in Erlenbach (ZH), which had the aim of becoming a universal museum of the history of human art. When Dorrie died in 1928, this dream was shattered and he had to sell most of his collection to public museums and collectors.
From 1930 onwards, Coray lived in Agnuzzo, where he built the Hôtel Casa Coray in which he placed his works and his new acquisitions. Despite the personal disappointment, Coray gave a great contribution to the knowledge of African art and cultures in Europe and in Switzerland in particular: a great achievement considering that he never went to the Dark Continent. Something similar could be expected just by a man with a great story like his one.

Han Coray lived following the motto “make the impossible possible.” A motto made for him, who began his life as an orphan having nothing and then everything, experiencing in 94 years more lives in one: teacher, educator, gallerist, library, merchant, collector, innkeeper; and again: father of 7 children, husband of 4 women and friend of a myriad of artists and intellectuals. The exceptional for him was always the ordinary.