ART + law
Over the last two years,
ATADA, a U.S.-based professional organization
and museums, has vigorously and successfully
in the U.S. Congress, and in grassroots campaigns.
Tribal Art Dealers Association, has launched
critical initiatives to halt damaging legislation,
and educate the public. Its goal has been to
restore balance in government policy and to
preserve and protect heritage for all. With-
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FIG. 1 (above): Mask
depicting an owl spirit.
Yup’ik. Alaska. C. 1900.
Wood, green trade paint, hide
binding. H: 18.5 cm (reproduced
actual size).
Ex Tomkins Collection (TC 255),
NY 1999–2016; Jack Bryan, Alaska
Shop, New York, 1999.
Private collection.
Photo: Alex Arthur.
Though destroyed, abandoned, or
sold to foreigners after being used,
such an object could be subject to
repatriation if STOP II were to pass.
representing tribal art dealers, collectors
defended their interests in the media,
ATADA, an acronym for the Antique
defend art dealer and collector rights,
WITH DAMAGING
LEGISLATION
IN THE WORKS,
ARTS ORGANIZATIONS
FIGHT BACK
By Kate Fitz Gibbon
program is bringing legally owned important
sacred objects from private collections
back to Native American tribes in a highly
successful, community-based alternative to
federal encroachment on collector rights.
This voluntary program, which relies entirely
on collector and dealer goodwill, has
brought more than thirty important objects
back to Southwestern tribes in just the last
year. A major symposium in May 2017, Understanding
Cultural Property, brought together
tribal political and spiritual leaders,
trade and auction house professionals, and
legal specialists from around the country.
In July 2017, ATADA testified at the U.S.
Department of State on international tribal
art.
out this dedicated effort, the 2017 STOP Act,
which seeks to make it U.S. federal policy
to return all Native American art to tribes,
and the 2016 TAAR Act, which would have
turned virtually every foreign antique into
stolen property, could already be U.S. law.
ATADA does not stand alone. U.S. and international
organizations have worked with
ATADA to fight harmful legislation affecting
art collecting. These include the Committee
for Cultural Policy, the Global Heritage Alliance,
the Professional Numismatists Guild,
and the Association of Dealers & Collectors
of Ancient & Ethnographic Art.1
ATADA also works directly with the Native
American community and with the public
in other ways. ATADA’s Voluntary Returns