Passion Investments: Art
Going Native
Daniel Akst
02/01/2007

Jack Silverman grew up in a house filled with Native American artifacts. His father, Eddie Silverman, owner of a chain of movie theaters, bought a 32-acre estate in Lake Geneva, Wis., that came complete with the previous owner’s collection. Today, the younger Silverman explains that his penchant for acquiring important pieces and lovingly preserving and assembling them into exhibitions is his penance for playing with irreplaceable ancient bows and arrows as a boy—and decimating a number of priceless objects.

PRICES FOR high-quality Native American objects are soaring. Top: A Polychrome Mask, with an estimated value ranging from $700,000 to $1 million, sold for more than $1.8 million at Sotheby’s last October. Bottom: An Upper Missouri River quilled, beaded hide shirt sold for $800,000 last May. (Photography by Sotheby’s.)

Riding the Superchief to whistle stops out West fueled Silverman’s fascination with the Native American culture and its aesthetics. Later, while serving as chairman of his Chicago-based family business, Essaness Theatres, he traveled west frequently to race motorcycles and buy artwork, primarily pottery and other objects from the Pueblo people of Acoma in New Mexico. "The Pueblos told the story of their religion and their life in their art," he says. His collection now travels across the country as the Silverman Museum.

Its travels are coming to an end. Silverman decided to sell the collection about a year ago. "I’m 67," he says, "a young 67, but if I were to die tomorrow, I’d want this thing done. I’m on to other things." His timing appears perfect. Auction prices for the best examples of Native American art and artifacts are soaring. The value for prized single items is approaching $1 million, while the price of large collections has risen toward eight figures.

Jim Haas, head of the Native American department at Bonhams & Butterfields in San Francisco, says he was thrilled to obtain roughly 120 lots from the Silverman Museum collection, which the auction house sold in December. Silverman assembled the finest collection of historic Pueblo pottery and textiles to ever be offered at auction, Haas says. Among the items were four rare embroidered Acoma mantas, or wearing blankets, including a specimen with a center medallion design that Bonhams & Butterfields claims is one of only two known to exist. The collection also included a remarkable four-color Acoma olla (jar) from the late 19th century, painted with birds, flowers and rainbow lines. "It is arguably the best example extant from that period," Haas says. Silverman is also donating about 50 kachina dolls to the Pueblo of Acoma.

Indigenous Value
Such large sales of Native American artifacts are rare events, and the finest objects are scarce and command high prices. "The best stuff is with people who have deep pockets, or with institutions," Silverman points out. These items come to the market only infrequently, and so they often attract stratospheric prices. The more mundane objects, however, are just treading water today.

Growing awareness about the rights of indigenous peoples—and laws aimed at protecting those rights—have cast a shadow over some works. "But if it comes from private property, you have every right to buy and resell it," Haas says. "And the best of the best goes for a lot. There’s a message out there that this is fine art as opposed to craft. We’re seeing people discarding the Eurocentric belief that only Greek and Roman antiquities are deserving of serious attention."

Last May, a private collector set a record for a Native American object at auction by paying $800,000 at Sotheby’s for an early Upper Missouri River beaded hide shirt that the auction house had estimated at $350,000 to $500,000. That record stood for only five months, until Sotheby’s auctioned a renowned grouping of Northwest Coast Indian art known as the Dundas Collection for an amount exceeding $7 million. A single Tsimshian polychrome wood portrait mask fetched more than $1.8 million. A Northwest Coast club crafted from elk or caribou antler and covered with totemic images brought $940,000, while a Tlingit polychrome wooden hat—bearing an exquisitely sculpted frog with a human face on the underside of its jaw—sold for $660,000. At that sale, art dealer Donald Ellis purchased 30 objects for $5.85 million on behalf of museums or benefactors planning to donate them to museums. After the auction, he sounded like a man who had gotten away with robbing a bank. "I’ve been trying to buy that collection for 30 years," he said. "I’m surprised we didn’t have to pay more."

Jeff Goldsmith, a health care consultant in Virginia, cultivated his passion for Native American art during the course of his marriage to Laurel Olson, daughter of noted collector Ralph Olson who died in 1989. Olson’s collection became so extraordinary that pieces were displayed in the Art Institute of Chicago. He not only mentored dealers, but also advised the IRS on how to value donations of Native American art. Goldsmith still heeds the advice of his former father-in-law: "Don’t buy mediocre pieces. Be willing to overpay for really good ones." Now divorced, Goldsmith only buys occasionally, but his collection of Southwest pots has turned out to be well worth the initial outlay. "The value of this pottery has increased far more than the value of stocks during the period I’ve owned them," he says. "They are great investments. But I can’t imagine selling them."

Value Judgment

 Auction prices for the finest quality Native American art and artifacts are soaring as new collectors are drawn to their combination of history and aesthetics. But the best objects come to market infrequently, and many suffer from complex legal and ethical issues. To avoid these, experts advise new collectors to pursue the contemporary market, at least at first.

Ellis believes that Native American art of the best quality remains undervalued. The record-setting Tsimshian mask, for example, is a gorgeous ceremonial object from the early to mid-19th century. "In the realm of world-class works of art, $1.8 million is barely an entry fee," Ellis says. "An African mask sold in Paris this summer for $7 million. Pre-Columbian masks went for $10 million 15 years ago." The otherwise low-key Ellis becomes heated when he observes that collectors now pay millions of dollars for production furniture made only 50 years ago. A Carlo Mollino table went for nearly $4 million in 2005, he notes. By comparison, he thinks Native American art is a field that has been vastly overlooked.

The value of high-quality Native American objects is comprised of a combination of aesthetics, condition, rarity and age. But "age" means different things in different settings. For tribes in the eastern United States, "old" objects date from the 18th century; for Plains tribes, they can hail from the first half of the 19th, according to Bruce Shackelford, an independent curator and appraiser in San Antonio.

Moral Reservations
Provenance and clear title are crucial issues for fans of Native American art. Collectors are generally safe when buying from a dealer who belongs to the Antique Tribal Art Dealers Association, which requires its members to guarantee the legitimacy of their wares and the legality and appropriateness of how they were acquired. Members also offer a full refund if any object turns out to be different than originally represented.

THE CENTER embroidery makes this Acoma manta, or wearing blanket, exceptional. It is the only known example in private hands. (Photograph by Bonhams & Butterfields.)

This is particularly important because the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) requires museums and federal agencies to return sacred objects and other cultural items to tribes. The law also prohibits the purchase or sale of such items—and provides for penalties. NAGPRA’s strictness and the lack of clear guidelines regarding what activities can lead to prosecution have made dealers wary of entire categories of objects. For example, Haas, noting that the Hopi have actively demanded repatriation of sacred objects, says, "We wouldn’t sell Hopi masks for you."

The laws appear less problematic for individuals than for dealers and museums; NAGPRA does not apply to private collectors. But while a collector is not likely to be prosecuted for owning a sacred object without clear provenance, the law will make it very difficult to sell or donate it. Items taken from federal lands may also be subject to repatriation, and federal laws tightly control ownership and use of eagle feathers, which are featured in some Indian objects.

These potential difficulties spur some collectors to focus on contemporary pieces of art. Cathy Notarnicola, curator of the Native American collection of Santa Fe art dealer Gerald Peters, says there are weavers today who are just as good as Navajo artists of the past. Silverman also believes that novices should begin with contemporary artwork. The Bonhams & Butterfields auction of his collection featured several contemporary pieces by Rebecca Lucario, an Acoma potter. Peters describes Lucario’s works as "thin, elegant and spectacularly painted. They’re better than the ones that were done 300 years ago."

Dan Albrecht is a truly devoted collector of contemporary work. He and his wife, Martha, are benefactors of the Heard Museum of Native Cultures and Art in Phoenix. Today, he focuses on Inuit art, but among Southwestern Indian artists, he is particularly fond of the late Allan Houser, one of the best-known modern Native American sculptors, and sculptor Arlo Namingha, whose father is the well-known Native American artist Dan Namingha.

Among potters, Albrecht singles out Al Qoyawayma, a Hopi trained as an engineer. One of his complex pots, perhaps 10 inches tall and 12 or 14 inches in diameter, might sell for $10,000, Albrecht says. He also admires the works of Cavan Gonzales, a grandson of the legendary Maria Martinez, whose 8- or 10-inch-high pots might bring $10,000; Tammy Garcia, whose "absolutely superb" pots of perhaps 15 inches in height might sell for $50,000 to $70,000; and Navajo weaver D.Y. Begay, whose works range from $4,000 to $10,000 for a 6-foot-square cloth.

Collectors who buy contemporary works avoid provenance issues and support working Native American artists. They also receive the added bonus of seeing their investment in quality contemporary objects increase in value in as little as five years, a marked shift from recent history, Haas says. "It used to take decades."

Daniel Akst writes about business and culture for a variety of publications including The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and Metropolis. He is the author of the novel The Webster Chronicle.

Additional Information:
Preservation's Pitfalls