Tyrone D. Campbell passed on Thanksgiving morning at age 86 in Scottsdale, Arizona. His partner of twenty-seven years, Lillian Black, passed several days before him.
He was born in Missouri in 1938, but his family moved to New Mexico when he was just a child. In 1971, he published the Tyrone D. Campbell Newsletter for the Trade, writing about Navajo and Pueblo textiles, their beauty, and their investment value. He was fascinated by Navajo chantways and collected rare books on the subject. His passion for Navajo and Pueblo textiles was endless. He was a treasure hunter first and a businessman second. He loved to find treasures and enjoy their beauty for a time before selling them to collectors worldwide. He was considered one of the foremost experts in his field. He ran many successful galleries, curated numerous exhibits around the country, lectured, and wrote many catalogs for Navajo and Pueblo textile collections. He co-wrote Navajo Pictorial Weaving 1880-1950: Folk Art Images of Native Americans in 1991 and co-wrote Navajo Pictorial Weaving 1880-1950, Expanded Edition in 2018.
When he passed, he was with his daughters Una Campbell, Kari Dawn Daniels, and Nina da Costa. Per Tyrone's final wishes, there will be an informal memorial service on the banks of the Rio Grande in Corrales, New Mexico, on December 28, 2024, at 1:00 PM. Don't hesitate to contact Una Campbell at (505) 400-9027 or email her at una@parnalllaw.com for location details if you want to attend.
In Memoriam - John Morris
John Morris (May 16, 1939-November 10, 2023)
We announce with regret that John Morris, ATADA member, Objects of Art Shows partner, and friend to many of us, passed away on November 10th.
John lived an epic life, although he did struggle with a long term illness in his later years. He was an historic rock and roll promoter and producer as well as a producer of art shows in his later years. His support of and commitment to the tribal arts community through the many shows that he co-produced will certainly be missed. Many of you that knew John well will, of course, miss him.
For those of you that did not know John well, we would like to share his biography taken from a recent obituary:
John H. Morris, Jr., of Santa Fe, NM, the creator and first managing director of the Fillmore East rock & roll theatre in New York City, and the production manager of the original Woodstock Festival of Art and Music, died at his Santa Fe, New Mexico home Friday, November 10, 2023, after a long illness.
Born in Grammercy Park in 1939, Mr. Morris studied theater at Carnegie Tech. At the age of 25, after a brief career as a lighting designer off-Broadway, on London’s West End, and at Peter Cook’s The Stroller’s Club in New York, Mr. Morris launched his career as a theatrical producer. He acquired the rights to Peter Cook’s satirical British productions, The Establishment and Cambridge Circus, and toured the shows across the US with casts including John Cleese, Cass Elliot, Peter Bellwood and Joe Maher.
In July of 1967, during “the summer of love”, Mr. Morris produced his first rock and roll concert, a free show in Toronto, Canada’s City Hall square, featuring Jefferson Airplane, which drew a crowd of more than 50,000, second in size only to The Beatles’ Shea Stadium concert the year before. The show was to promote a week-long Jefferson Airplane and Grateful Dead rock & roll residency at Toronto’s O’Keefe Theatre produced by Mr. Morris and fellow Carnegie Tech alum Joshua White for West Coast rock & roll empresario, Bill Graham.
In Toronto, John Morris and Joshua White introduced elaborate theatrical staging to the world of rock and roll, including the first psychedelic light show projected from behind a giant screen. Their theatrical innovations in concert production have evolved into today’s elaborate staging of popular music shows and festivals.
Mr. Morris produced Jefferson Airplane’s first East Coast tour before rejoining Mr. White in December of 1967, to produce a weeklong Festival of Light and Music at the Minneola Theatre, featuring shows by Frank Zappa, Vanilla Fudge, Tim Buckley and Ravi Shankar, that formally launched the psychedelic Joshua Light Show.
Mr. Morris then produced rock concerts at the Anderson Theatre on New York’s Second Avenue for Crawdaddy magazine, where, with Janis Joplin’s New York City premier, he convinced Bill Graham to open an east coast theatrical version of his already legendary San Francisco’s psychedelic rock ballroom.
Eighteen days after Graham and partners including Bob Dylan’s agent Albert Grossman, acquired Lowes lower east side Village Theater, Mr. Morris, and a crew including theater tech students from NYU, led by Professor Chris Langhart, opened The Fillmore East with Janis Joplin, BB King, Tim Buckley and the Joshua Light Show on the marquee.
After co-producing the first European concert tours for Jefferson Airplane and The Doors with Doors manager Bill Siddons, Mr. Morris was invited to join the production team for the Woodstock Festival of Art and Music. For Woodstock, Morris booked most of the bands which would appear at Woodstock, assuring that both the relatively unknown Santana, Country Joe and the Fish and Joe Cocker were on the bill. During the iconic, but weather-plagued three-day festival, where a crowd anticipated to be 100,000 grew to an estimated half a million, Morris was the principal Master of Ceremonies and is recognized as “the voice” of Woodstock, having made the now famous announcement, “it’s a free concert from now on”
After moving to England in 1970 to organize the European Producers Association and promote touring US rock bands, Mr. Morris launched London’s first rock & roll theatre, The Rainbow, in Finsbury Park, with The Who as its opening act, November 4, 1971.
Mr. Morris continued to produce rock and roll events throughout Europe and the United States until 1990, including 19 Grateful Dead concerts; the premier European tour of Paul and Linda McCartney’s post-Beatles band, Wings; and tours with Ike and Tina Turner, Chuck Berry, New Riders of the Purple Sage and Santana. His production companies, Jumping Jack Productions in the UK and Europe, and Cadogan Productions in the US, mounted concerts for artists including Stevie Ray Vaugh, David Bowie, Pink Floyd and Frank Zappa. He also acted as manager for Otis Redding, the Danish band Gasolin’ and Japanese jazz musician, Stomu Yamashta, producing Yamashta’s third album, Go Too for Arista Records.
A collector and student of Native American art and artifacts since boyhood, Mr. Morris opened a Native American Antiques store in London in 1973, The Bear Creek Trading company. In 1995, he joined with Kim R. Martindale to produce antiques, fine art and design shows, throughout the US. For the next 28 years, their Antiquities Shows, Native American Art Shows and Objects of Art Shows were produced in Santa Fe, NM; New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, Scottsdale, and Napa.
The son of John H. Morris and Louise Morris, John’s Grammercy Park, childhood in New York City was interrupted when his father returned to active duty in the US Army during the Korean War, and he attended 6th grade in three states, before the family settled in Pleasantville, NY following the war.
Morris is survived by his partner of 33 years, Luzann Fernandez of Santa Fe, NM; brother, Mark Morris of Sneden’s Landing, NY, nephew Eric Morris of Los Angeles, CA, and nieces, Nicole Merrick and her husband Keil; Marie Fernandez and her husband Guillermo Serrano Terren; Katie Fernandez; grandnephews Oliver and Charlie Merrick and grandniece Kate Merrick.
John H. Morris, Jr., is also survived by a world of loyal and loving friends drawn to him over a lifetime on concert stages, sailing adventures, photographic safaris, dinner tables, art show floors and pickup football games.
Plans for a Celebration of Life will be announced at a later date. The Family requests that in lieu of flowers, donations be made in Mr. Morris’s memory to Assistance Dogs of the West in Santa Fe, NM.
Adios John,
Will Hughes, President ATADA
Mark Blackburn, President ATADA Foundation
In Memoriam - James Willis and Jimmy Economos
This year has seen the passing of two greats in the tribal art world. James Willis and Jimmy Economos each spent many years working to promote tribal art through countless exhibitions, presentations and collections. They will be missed.
James Willis
1934 - 2019
James Willis was a preeminent dealer of African, Oceanic and Indonesian tribal art in the United States for greater than 45 years. He was the first in the United States to feature important themed exhibits on specialized subjects in his Geary Street gallery in San Francisco that could never be assembled again today. The 1979 “Art of the Batak” being an example of a historic show that revealed the masterful art of this previously obscure Sumatran headhunting tribe and changed the way the world viewed the subject; this exhibit has never been equaled. So too with countless other special presentations, offered over a career that spanned a time when the art was both available and relatively affordable, as he said, the “Golden Age” to be a tribal art dealer.
James Willis, known and respected for his expertise, integrity and fair-trading, builder of fine private and public collections, was also an advisor to three Presidents on the Cultural Property Advisory Committee at the Department of State. James Willis, husband, father, friend and mentor once told me, “If it can be said at an art dealer’s funeral that he never sold fakes and paid his bills on time, he was a success…” James Willis was so much more.
-Thomas Murray
In 2015, James Willis was awarded the ATADA Lifetime Achievement Award. Click here to read a tribute to James in celebration of this award, written by Thomas Murray; as well as an interview with James by Michael Auliso from Tribalmania Gallery.
A memorial for James, written by Lin Chen-Willis, can be found on the San Francisco Tribal website. https://www.sftribal.com/dealers/james-willis/
Jimmy Economos
1939-2019
“James Economos, the legendary art dealer, passed away peacefully on July 29 at the age of 80. His husband of 50 years, Gilbert Hampton, was at his side. Born in New York City, James studied at Columbia University. His eye for African, Oceanic, and American Indian art established him as a leader in the field and had a major impact on the development of many significant public and private collections, including the renowned collection at the St. Louis Art Museum. After living in New York and Denver, he settled in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he had an eponymous gallery.”
The full memorial for Jimmy can be found at: http://artdaily.cc/news/116029/James-Economos--A-life-remembered#.Xai8PpNKhTY
In Memoriam: Carol LeMasney Hayes 1933-2018
Carol LeMasney Hayes
October 10, 1933–February 21, 2018
Carol died suddenly and peacefully after a day spent in a booth at the Marin Indian Art Show, doing what she loved best, connecting with people who will always remember her. She grew up in the East Bay, attended Oakland High School and graduated from Stanford University, where she met her husband, Allan Hayes. They married in 1958, moved to Sausalito, and in 1963, bought and remodeled the hillside home where they raised their two sons, Mark and Keith, and where they still live.
Carol was a painting and drawing major at Stanford, and quickly learned sophisticated antique restoration skills, a talent she used for several important Bay Area antique dealers. Meanwhile, the family antique collection outgrew the house and garage, and in 1980, Carol started Summerhouse Antiques, at first in a collective in San Anselmo. The business concentrated on general antiques until 1989, when Carol and Allan made their first trip to Santa Fe. They quickly fell in love with Southwestern Indian pottery, and the business gradually evolved into today's Summerhouse Indian Art. In the years since, Carol mainly applied her restoration skills to pieces of that pottery that needed help.
They found the art so fascinating that they felt they had to tell people about it, and In 1991, their oldest friends, John and Brenda Blom, joined them on a Santa Fe trip. Together, the Bloms and the Hayeses built a joint collection and wrote a book, Southwestern Pottery, Anasazi to Zuni, which came out in 1996. A small book, Collections of Southwestern Pottery, followed in 1998.
Carol became increasingly interested in the pottery of southern Arizona and set out to write a book about that specialized subject. However, they learned so much history that the book became a broad history of the Desert told with artifacts. She and Allan co-authored The Desert Southwest, Four Thousand Years of Life and Art, a 2006 Southwest Book of the Year. In 2008, she and Allan created an in-depth website, summerhouseindianart.com. In 2012, Shire Publications of Oxford, England asked for a small-format book, and Carol and Allan co-wrote and photographed Pottery of the Southwest. Meanwhile, the first book Southwestern Pottery, proved to be a niche best-seller and stayed in print for 20 years, to the point where it was hopelessly outdated. Carol, Allan and John Blom rewrote and rephotographed it completely, and an expanded Second Edition came out in 2015.
During those years, Carol served on the Sausalito Trees and Views Committee and on the Board of Directors of the Sausalito Historical Society. She and Allan also served on the Board of Directors of The Museum of the American Indian in Novato, where they curated exhibits and where Carol provided restoration skills as needed.
In the coming weeks, there will be a Celebration of Life. The family would appreciate contributions to one of Carol's favorite organizations, Habitat for Humanity and the Marin Humane Society.
Note: This memorial was sent to us by Mr. Hayes and originally ran in the San Francisco Chronicle on February 24, 25 & 26, 2018.
In Memoriam: Eleanor Tulman Hancock
Eleanor Tulman Hancock, respected dealer in North American Indian Art, died after a brief illness on June l5, 2017. Eleanor is survived by her beloved son Mason and granddaughter Leah, and her husband of 46 years, James. Eleanor was predeceased by her dear brother Eli and former husbands, the composer Lan Adomian and physicist Marcel Weinrich.
After college, Eleanor began a career as an actress in New York City. She pursued a Master’s Degree in English from Union College, Schenectady, NY, and worked in Public Relations before discovering her passion for American Indian jewelry, which led to an intensive study of American Indian Art.
A highly-respected dealer for over 50 years, she specialized in notable examples of American Indian jewelry, pottery, basketry, textiles (including several Navaho First Phase Chief blankets), Kachinas, beadwork, and art of the Northwest Coast and Inuit. Eleanor became a trusted adviser to major collectors and museums in the United States and in Europe. Objects, formerly in her collection, are exhibited in many museums including the Ralph T. Coe and the Charles and Valerie Diker collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Thaw Collection at the Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown; the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City; and in the Ralph T. Coe Foundation collection of American Indian Art, Santa Fe. Works from her personal collection were included in exhibitions at the American Museum of Natural History, The Brooklyn Museum, and the National Museum of the American Indian, of which she was an early supporter.
Eleanor was a long-time member of the Antique Tribal Art Dealers Association and the Appraiser’s Association of America. A devotee of all the arts, Eleanor shared her love of theater, museums, ballet and concerts with her many devoted friends. She will be remembered for her indomitable spirit, generosity, and unfailing concern for friends and family, as well as her fashion flair, which always included spectacular antique silver and turquoise jewelry. Eleanor was a longtime supporter of NOW. Memorials are planned for late September and early October in Gloucester, MA and New York. For details, please write: EleanorHancockMemorial@gmail.com.
In Memoriam - Jay Evetts
I don’t recall when I first met Jay Evetts. He was a fixture in the dealer scene when I first became involved in the 1980s, and over the years, there were many exchanges, mostly down the alley in the ‘office’ where he and Bob Vandenberg did business. There was always more jewelry there than anywhere else, and I always marveled (still do!) how they could keep track of it.
I was always struck by Jay’s kindness. Not always apparent because he was so quiet, but it shone through as you got to know him more. And his shy smile. What follows is a short remembrance from one of his friends as well as an interview Susan Swift conducted with Jay in 2004. Susan took thephoto at the time of the interview.
Happy trails, my friend, until we meet again.
-John Molloy
Harold (Jay) Evetts
Harold (Jay) Evetts passed away November 24, 2016 in Santa Fe, New Mexico at age 70. Jay had been living at the Casa Real nursing facility for the past two years.
He was born June 6, 1946 (he liked to say two years to the date of D-Day, 1944) in Boise City, Oklahoma, but early in his life the family moved to Eastern Colorado to become farmers/ranchers. Jay’s parents were educators and encouraged him to graduate from Colorado State University, which he did in 1968. In his youth, Jay would discover arrowheads every year when the fields were plowed, and from that point on, he became fascinated with Native American culture.
In the mid-1980s Jay started his trading career, buying and selling Navajo rugs. Soon he started packing those rugs into his Olds 88 to head to Santa Fe and the surrounding areas to sell and trade. His quiet demeanor won over all whom he met. Jay formed a friendship with Bob Vandenberg that developed into a 40-year successful business partnership. Prior to his stroke, Jay designed and built a home in Gallup, New Mexico. He spent many hours collecting the rocks for the exterior and objects for the interior. Jay loved history and was an avid reader.
Jay will always be remembered as a man of few words, but from collectors to dealers, he will be missed by all.
+ Click here to read Susan Swift's 2004 Interview Jay Evetts
SS: This is Susan Swift interviewing Jay Evetts, in October of 2004, and we’re mainly going to talk about how he became an Indian trader.
JE: Well when I was 18 years old I decided to collect rugs and went down to Crown Point, rug auction, had 500 dollars to spend, bought two or three rugs, I think, 350 dollars or so, but I realized I didn’t have enough money to collect very good things, or very much, so decided to sell some and maybe keep one or two or three. So that’s kinda how I got started but I didn’t do much until after I went to college in the 70’s.
SS: What did you study in college?
JE: Agriculture and economics and basic anthropology courses.
SS: So did you put those into use in some way?
JE: Oh, a bit for my personal use, hunting arrowheads, and background for buying and selling stuff.
SS: What were you doing for a living in 1964 when you decided you might like to buy some Navajo rugs?
JE: I was just out of high school. I was farming and ranching, I had cows, dry land farming. Farmed for my Dad. Getting ready to go to college.
SS: So you made your first “buy” before you even entered University?
JE: Yeah.
SS: Were you trading throughout your university days, or just studying?
JE: No, just...I might have bought a few little odds and ends, probably some jewelry, a few rugs. But I didn’t do anything much until I went to Ashton’s show in Denver, in ’71. Really saw lots of quality and quantity of things.
SS: You went there as a spectator?
JE: Yes.
SS: Did you know anybody in the business then?
JE: No, I didn’t know a soul.
SS: But you got inspired.
JE: Yeah, I got inspired. You know, spent alot of money, for me, at that show. Couple thousand or three thousand or something.
SS: What did you buy?
JE: Ah, mostly rugs. Bought four or five rugs, I think.
SS: Must’ve been good ones.
JE: Well, yeah, they were OK. They weren’t great. Through the years I did well with those.
SS: So then did you proceed to start buying more in earnest in order to sell?
JE: Yeah, then I started buying at antique auctions, and I’d go to a few shows. Ron Milam at that time was having lots of auctions in Colorado, He always had pretty good stuff. I started buying jewelry more, too.
SS: So you were probably in your early 20’s then?
JE: Yeah, early 20’s. Well, mid 20’s.
SS: Still living in Colorado?
JE: Yes, still living in Colorado, farming and ranching.
SS: So how did one sort of take precedence over the other?
JE: Well the Indian trading just kind of every year got more involving, you know involved more money and more items. More travel. I think that I had lots of rugs, twenty or thirty, and I think I did a show in Albuquerque in ‘75 or ‘76. Wasn’t very successful. But anyway, it kept growing more and more. Finally, ranching got worse and worse, so I could see the day when I was going to do this full time.
SS: At what point in time did you move to New Mexico?
JE: I moved there in ‘86 after I quit farming and ranching.
SS: To Gallup?
JE: To Gallup.Me and Bob Vandenberg and Rick Rosenthal bought a place in Gallup, and I moved down there. Well, that was full time then. Started buying and selling. Old stuff and also new stuff.
SS: Were you and Bob Vandenberg partners from that time on?
JE: Yeah, me and Bob were partners from about ‘83, probably, when we bought a house, an old house in Colorado Springs that was an antique shop. Started running that.
SS: As an antiques store?
JE: Yes.
SS: How many years did that go on?
JE: Well, we sold it about ‘97 or ‘98 probably.
SS: What was it called?
JE: Antique Brokers. It was on East Colorado Avenue, Colorado Springs.
SS: So Jay, would you tell us a little bit about your early life? Who your parents were and what it was like?
JE: Well, my parents were from Oklahoma. I was born in Elk City, Oklahoma in ‘46. In ‘46 they moved to Monument, Colorado, near Colorado Springs and Denver, and taught school. Then in ‘48, my parents had two twin sisters, or twin babies, my sisters. And my folks moved to Ramah, Colorado. Dad taught there like ten years. And he farmed and ranched and I started school in Ramah. That was ‘53 I guess. Then he moved south to Miami, Yoder, a small country school, taught there like twelve years, farmed and ranched at the same time. That’s where I started high school, and farming and ranching. And then did that until ‘86 when I moved to Gallup.
SS: Were you the only male child in your family?
JE: Yeah, I have the twin sisters, and I had an older sister who passed away when she was four.
SS: I understand that you read a lot of books.
JE: Well I have lots of books, and I read some of them.
SS: Did you start reading really early?
JE: Yeah, I started buying Indian books, probably when I was sixteen. Every year I’d buy all the current books. Still do.
SS: You’ve probably even read them.
JE: Oh, I’ve read alot of ‘em. I haven’t read them all, but they come in handy when you need to look something up.
SS: I understand you’ve made a little silver jewelry yourself.
JE: Yeah, in the 70’s, probably ‘74, I wanted to know more about Indian jewelry, so I decided to learn how to make jewelry. I took a night class from the high school teacher in Colorado Springs. Just learning, you know, basic silversmithing. And I made a few things, for a few years, but nothing really... and not much quantity. But I learned how things were made, what to look for.
SS: Was that the main impetus behind your wanting to make silver jewelry?
JE: Yeah, learning how it was made was the main reason to do it. I didn’t want to become a craftsman or anything. But I made a few pieces I really liked and quite a few pieces I didn’t like.
SS: There’s a few still floating around...
JE: I still have a few pieces that I actually wear that I made.
SS: We’re looking at your ring collection here and there are 52 rings, and I was wondering, over what period of time were they collected?
JE: Oh, probably from the late 70’s up until the last few years. About a twenty year time span, twenty-five maybe.
SS: And what was the criterion for a keeper?
JE: Age was one of the main criteria. Aesthetics, if they looked good. I tend to like turquoise maybe better than plain silver. I always tried to keep interesting stone rings. This is the last of my collection. Fifteen years ago, I sorted out probably twenty or thirty rings and about five years ago I sold another thirty or forty. I consider these the best ones.
SS: The ones you’ve held onto the longest.
JE: Yes.
SS: If you had to pick out a couple of favorites here, what would they be?
JE: Well, I kinda like big rings and I like these early three stone type rings that probably date from 1910. Here’s a real big ring, square stone ring from the 20’s or 30’s. That’s probably the one I’d wear if I wore any of these.
SS: What’s the story on the ones with the garnet? I see three here that have garnet or garnet-like material.
JE: Well they were just...Way back in the 1890’s and 1900, turquoise was very scarce. They would use glass, or native garnets once in a while. So that’s where that comes from. A lot of turquoise was pretty low grade at that time. Persian turquoise was available too. I think glass was available and relatively cheap compared to turquoise.
SS: But we’d have to say that their love of blue, or the turquoise color, took over.
JE: Yeah, I think they liked the blue the best, so if they could come up with blue turquoise, they used it. Most of the glass is either red, or blue.
SS: When did turquoise begin being mined, or prolifically?
JE: Oh, I’d say after the turn of the century. A lot of it was associated with copper, and Persian turquoise was shipped in here pretty early, 1880’s and 90’s probably. I think it was pre-cut, over in Persia.
SS: Who was requesting it?
JE: Well it was like a Victorian gemstone, and then, Indians always liked turquoise. They had prehistoric turquoise available to them, and most of the known deposits were mined in prehistoric times. But I don’t think the Navajos actually mined any turquoise. They just got it through trade or found it in ruins.
SS: Do you think the mined turquoise was kind of a bonus that was found when they were mining copper?
JE: Yeah, most of the miners were looking for copper. Looking for gold and silver and then copper was secondary. So, there were probably a few individuals who went for turquoise, like the Cerrillos mine was mined just for turquoise. Apparently Tiffany, or I’m not sure if the Tiffany Company owned it or some New York people owned it. They called one of the mines Tiffany and they mined it mainly for Victorian use, I think.
SS: About what period of time did that start, the mining for turquoise in earnest?
JE: Probably 1890’s, and I don’t know what happened after, like World War I, there probably wasn’t much going on with mining, except copper. Same way with World War II; the emphasis was on copper and not turquoise.
SS: So is it fair to say that some of the fancier turquoise that we see now, and that we enjoy now, was discovered after World War II?
JE: Yeah, I’d say that Blue Gem, No. 8, Lone Mountain, all that is kind of 40’s and 50’s stuff. Bisbee I think is even later, as a rule. I think Wallace had alot to do with mining turquoise because back in the 30’s and definitely the 40’s he was encouraging alot of jewelry manufacture, and jewelry making. And I think he even developed his own mines.
SS: This is Mr. Wallace who had the trading post at Zuni?
JE: Yeah.
SS: Well is there anything else you’d like to tell us?
JE: Ah, maybe when I think about it a little bit.
Share your memories
All those who knew Jay are welcome to add their memories in the comments below.