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Kenneth W. Dalke 1937–2018
KEN DALKE and his wife, Rosella, became good friends
of ours during their annual trips to Santa Fe for the Ethnographic
Art Fairs. We knew them as Native American
basket collectors from Santa Cruz, California, but one
year when Tad showed Ken a beautiful Maori fl ute he
had just acquired, he bought it and his passion to pursue
worldwide tribal art was ignited. Although he dabbled in
tribal masks for a while, his true passion came from collecting
shields from Africa, Oceania, Indonesia, and the
Philippines. He also acquired examples of associated tribal
weapons and, gradually, Ken and Rosella added some 200
tribal combs from around the world to their collection. He
loved the anthropological study of the material culture and
was always generous in sharing his knowledge. His face
would literally light up with enthusiasm when discussing
a new purchase. Perhaps it was his own background as a
custom cabinetmaker and woodworker for more than forty
years that gave him an appreciation for the artistry and
fi ne detail found in combs and shields crafted from wood,
bone, and shell.
As young parents and seekers of knowledge, Ken and
Rosella took classes in anthropology at their local college
and then spent several weekends volunteering at an early
man dig site in California’s Mojave Desert that was sponsored
by Louis Leakey. A highlight of the dig was meeting
Leakey in person. Ken and his family of four children
would spend their vacation time taking backpacking trips
in California in search of petroglyphs. When the children
were grown, Ken and Rosella made trips to Mexico to visit
ancient ruins of Monte-Alban, Teotihuacan, and other lesser
known sites. They also visited rock art sites in Hawaii.
Upon his retirement, he took up cooking classes and,
with his usual passion, he became a fi ne home chef, and we
were lucky to enjoy some of the meals he proudly prepared,
which he would then discuss with us.
Even though he was in failing health, we were not surprised
when Ken appeared at the 2018 San Francisco Tribal
& Textile Art Show, escorted by Rosella and two of his
children, who have also become collectors of tribal art.
Though he will be greatly missed, his passions have been
passed along to the next generation.
Tad and Sandy Dale
ment in the fi eld of African art studies. Also in 2017, the
Ethnic Arts Council of Los Angeles, an independent organization
of Southern California collectors and scholars,
celebrated her achievements with the Dai Sensei/Master
Teacher Award.
Polly was an astute scholar with a strong sense of design
and the aesthetic qualities of great works of art. She was a
genius at fi nding paths to transmit the signifi cance of African
art to students and the museum public. During the last
eight-plus years of her life, Polly lived with stage four metastatic
breast cancer; always the teacher striving for outreach,
she collaborated with the Susan G. Komen Breast
Cancer Foundation to create programs to share information
on healthcare resources and research developments.
Polly found amazing equilibrium, balancing her UCLA
professorship, curatorial life in New York and Los Angeles,
and a strong circle of friends and family. Her passing
marks a huge loss in so many ways.
Nancy Thomas