New Getty Volume Charts Evolution of Mexican Artifacts from Curiosity to Art Collector’s Dream

In midcentury Los Angeles, a curious transformation was underway, helmed by Earl Leopold Stendahl, the founder of the Stendahl Art Galleries of Los Angeles and an influential art dealer among a circle of Hollywood art collectors.

Ancient, pre-Hispanic, Mexican artifacts, once dismissed as anthropological curiosities, had become prized artworks that were now being prominently displayed in major US museums, featured in advertisements and Hollywood films, and shown adorning the homes of celebrities. The conceptual transformation of pre-Hispanic objects from anthropological artifacts to ancient works of art was implemented via strategic marketing and Stendahl’s keen eye for opportunity, as he repositioned these artifacts to define a new canon of “ancient American art.”

Artifacts to Art: Collecting Ancient America in Midcentury L.A. (Getty Research Institute, $30) goes beyond this glamorous facade, however, to explore the darker narrative of the looting, smuggling, and forgery that fueled this midcentury craze. Throughout the volume, the authors expose how the desire for authenticity and prestige often came at the expense of ethical collecting practices and cultural heritage, bringing together art history, museum studies, and the politics of the antiquities trade, offering both a social history and a critical examination of how ancient Mexico’s past was sold in twentieth-century America.