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