On September 16, Heritage Auctions will host a single-owner auction for the first time in many years. Scholar James M. Silberman spent seventy years collecting over two hundred pieces of renowned Pre-Columbian and Tribal Art. ?Few collections have received as much exposure as those items belonging to Mr. Silberman,? said Delia Sullivan, Senior Specialist of Ethnographic Art at Heritage. ?His collection helped many institutions better understand the art and culture of Africa, and he later became a consultant on the subject.?
Many of the pieces Silberman collected were tribal masks. One of the featured masks available is made by the Lwena people in Angola and their counterparts the Lovale in Zambia depicting an ancestor who acts as a guardian of boys during initiation and sequestration in the bush-camp. A Bamileke Dance Mask, made in Cameroon, is also part of the collection. This mask was commonly used in festivals and funerals of important individuals.
Silberman?s love for tribal art, specifically African art, began while he was a student at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He eventually joined the Department of Labor. His time with the government gave him many opportunities to travel to Europe where he spent countless hours in galleries and purchased many pieces from collectors who specialized in African art. On his travels to West Africa and the Congo, he purchased a large portion of his collection from galleries in main cities and rural areas.
Silberman eventually befriended Warren Robbins, who was responsible for the Museum of African Art that was the predecessor of the National Museum of African Art at the Smithsonian Institution. Silberman helped produce two major exhibits at the National Gallery of Art on North West American Indian Art and African Art. This led to his new career as an appraiser of African art and as a consultant to other art collectors.
Silberman passed away on his 103rd birthday this year. Family and friends will miss his stories on each piece in the esteemed collection. ?His family selected Heritage Auctions to offer ?the best of the best? to its clients,? Sullivan said. ?Most all of these works have not been made available outside his collection in decades…?
For more information on the collection, please visit www.ha.com or call 214-528-3500.