A planned sale of a mysterious collection of around 1,400 African art pieces that was planned for Thursday (April 4) morning in Houston, was called off at the last minute after the works’ owner filed for bankruptcy Wednesday evening.
Sam Njunuri, the owner of the collection, filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy the night before the sale, according to local media reports by Click2Houston and Houston Landing. He had been ordered to sell the collection in order to pay $989,000 in damages to two former tenants who sued him after the locks on their home were changed and their belongings were taken.
The artefacts were to be sold together, as one lot, with a starting bid of $4,400. The sale’s abrupt cancellation frustrated many interested potential bidders, some of whom only heard about it as people started arriving at the site of the sale Thursday morning, in the two cramped office rooms where they have been stored for the past two years.
“They could’ve publicised better that it was cancelled instead of allowing everyone to get excited,” Reginald Butler, a prospective bidder from nearby Meyerland, told Houston Landing. “I’ve been waiting years to see something like this.”
The vast collection of masks, wood carvings, clay sculptures, metal statues and more first came under public scrutiny in 2020 after local media investigations revealed that the artefacts had come into the possession of Harris County Precinct 1 commissioner Rodney Ellis and were being stored at taxpayers’ expense in a renovated warehouse in south Houston. The revelations prompted a corruption investigation of Ellis. In 2021, a grand jury in Harris County declined to bring criminal charges against Ellis.
Ellis’s office did not respond to The Art Newspaper‘s inquiry about the cancelled auction.
“I’m glad this beautiful art collection will find a home, after being tied up for years as part of a shameful political stunt by the outgoing district attorney,” Ellis said at the time, according to Houston Public Media, in reference to Kim Ogg, the district attorney whose office carried out the investigation.
Njunuri—a real estate agent based in Houston who is originally from Kenya—had at one time intended to create a museum to house his collection. However, according to a Houston Chronicle report, he has no ownership or provenance materials for the objects in his collection.
Njunuri has not commented publicly on the bankruptcy filing but, through a representative and business partner, Stanley Reid, has said he still hopes the art can be shown in a museum. “This collection has been going on for more than 20 years in the interest of doing something that will be of relevance to the community,” Reid told KHOU.
