In a striking 1940 photograph captured by the visionary artist Man Ray, Academy Award-winning actress Teresa Wright poses with a soft, contemplative gaze alongside an ancient Chacmool sculpture. The reclining figure, featuring its head sharply contorted toward the viewer, radiated an aura of raw antiquity blended with a sleek, minimalist aesthetic. This striking visual juxtaposition offered a refreshed, modernist vision of ancient art to Hollywood’s elite, burgeoning private collectors, and a growing network of North American museums eager to acquire pre-colonial artifacts from ancient Mesoamerica.
The allure of these objects quickly translated into major institutional acquisitions. In 1947, for instance, the Minneapolis Institute of Art proudly purchased a prominent “King Chak Mool” for the substantial sum of $10,000. Capitalizing on its newfound prestige, the sculpture subsequently toured Europe as part of a high-profile international exhibition from 1958 to 1960, rapidly cementing its status as a cornerstone of the museum’s permanent collection. Yet, just a decade after its triumphant tour, a specialized art expert uncovered a devastating truth: the celebrated sculpture was a sophisticated forgery.
This fascinating and troubling episode—alongside the shadowy operations of the gallerist sitting at the center of the mid-century trade—is meticulously chronicled in Artifacts to Art: Collecting Ancient America in Midcentury L.A., published in 2026 by the Getty Research Institute. Authored by a dedicated team of researchers consisting of Andrew D. Turner, Mary E. Miller, and Khristaan D. Villela, the book examines the complex societal, economic, and institutional conditions that fundamentally shifted the classification of “pre-Hispanic” objects. Rather than being viewed strictly as anthropological items or scientific specimens for academic study, these cultural items were aggressively rebranded as high-value art objects ready for acquisition by elite museums and wealthy private patrons.
For the authors and art historians alike, the book also provides long-awaited answers to lingering questions surrounding the provenance of regional collections. As a museum curator reflecting on the geographic distribution of ancient treasures might ask: Why is such an immense volume of cultural heritage originating from ancient Central and South America permanently preserved within the public and private collections of Los Angeles?
The answer, as Artifacts to Art demonstrates with exhaustive documentation, lies largely in the activities of the Stendahl Art Galleries. Under the direction of Earl Stendahl, the galleries functioned as a primary engine for the illicit looting, smuggling, and commercial distribution of pre-colonial artifacts to a wealthy and uncritical Los Angeles clientele. Today, the comprehensive archive of the Stendahl Art Galleries is housed securely at the Getty Research Institute. This institutional repository has made possible an unprecedented, deep investigation into the clandestine business dealings of an art dealer who demonstrated remarkably little regard for the delicate cultural histories and source communities he routinely exploited.
Turner, Miller, and Villela present five years of groundbreaking, meticulous research drawn directly from this archival treasure trove. Operating across non-chronological chapters, the book traces the intricate web of actors and economic forces that collided to manufacture a booming, lucrative market for these antiquities. The narrative exposes a vast ecosystem that linked revered international museums, glamorous Hollywood actors seeking cultural cachet, and an active network of looters operating across rural sites in Mexico. Through this rigorous examination, the publication pulls back the curtain on an era when the institutional art world eagerly looked the other way, rewarding illicit trafficking under the guise of aesthetic appreciation and cross-cultural discovery.
