Magazines - Tribal Art  

By Clinton Nagy

Introduction
In a small office development in California’s Silicon Valley is a quiet suite of rooms that is climate controlled, lit with filtered light, and fitted with conservation cabinets and a formidable security system. It is home to one of the most outstanding collections of Native American art presently in private hands. This remarkable group of objects is presently owned by John and Marva Warnock but came together into its present configuration as part of the Masco Corporation Collection, which was formed under the guidance of the company’s chairman, Richard A. Manoogian. While the collection has a status in the art world that borders on the legendary, it has had little public exposure and only a selection of the pieces have been published, that is, until recently.

Masco and Manoogian
The Masco Corporation is a sprawling Michigan-based company that produces a wide variety of home products such as plumbing products, kitchen and bath cabinetry, and furniture, as well as paint, decorative architectural products, and electronics. The company was founded in 1929 by Alex Manoogian and two partners as the Masco Screw Products Company, which supplied machined parts to the automotive industry. It shifted its manufacturing emphasis and expanded over the years and, in 1968, Manoogian’s Yale-educated son Richard became its president. Richard became involved with the Detroit Institute of Art as a board member out of a sense of what he described as civic duty. Exposure to curators and collectors at DIA soon bore fruit and Richard and his wife Jane began to develop what was to become one of the greatest private collections of pre-twentieth century American paintings ever formed.