Selling the Past: Los Angeles’s Stendahl Galleries and the Rise of the Pre-Hispanic Art Market in the mid-1900’s

View of Stendahl Art Galleries patio, 1944, Floyd Faxon Getty Research Institute, 2017.M.38

By Nicolle Riley

History is rarely lost all at once. More often, it disappears gradually over time as objects are displaced from their original contexts and stories from the past become detached, remaining untold. While this might not change history, it can easily dictate the narratives and knowledge we have access to, directly informing our understanding of historical records and how they are accurately taught. An artifact’s provenance is not simply a record of ownership; it is the record of an object’s journey through history. When that history is disrupted through looting, undocumented transactions, or illicit trade, the stories these objects once carried, and their cultural significance become difficult to reconstruct and even more difficult to preserve.

It is easy to assume that unethical practices within the art world remained confined to major cultural institutions and museums. However, this assumption allows smaller galleries and the “gray market” of the art world to quietly escape public scrutiny.^{[1] [2]} The gray market encompasses both legal and illegally obtained objects circulating through the same institutional networks, including museums, galleries, and private collections. This overlap blurs the ethical line between objects obtained through authorized acquisition and those with unlawful and undocumented origins. ^[3] Historically, private galleries have become entangled in questionable and unethical practices, leaving buyers blindly unaware of the complex histories behind how the means these works of art were acquired and the lasting consequences these actions have.