Beauty in art is subjective. What appeals to one person might be repulsive to another. This is as true in antique American Indian art as in any other type of art, and doubly true in jewelry. Many collectors adore the turquoise and coral nugget pieces of Dan Simplicio, while an equal number think them garish and awkward. Collectors of older Navajo pieces wish that older Zuni pieces had heavier silverwork, while the Zuni devotees search in vain for older Navajo pieces with fine lapidary work. Beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder, which is why many collectors find themselves reaching for something tangible as a sign of quality. Which brings us to the hallmark.
The first artist's hallmark on a piece of American Indian jewelry probably dates to 1925, when Juan DiDeos hallmarked a belt buckle now in the C. G. Wallace collection at the Heard Museum. Before then, all jewelry was made anonymously unless a patron or buyer took note of the artist. The idea of art as an individual exercise was not part of the extremely community-minded Indian culture, and as late as the 1960s many major jewelers had to be told to hallmark their pieces. People like Leekya, Leo Poblano and Charlie Houck never did use a hallmark, though contemporaries such as Dideos, Morris Robinson, Frank Vacit and Ambrose Roanhorse hallmarked many (though not all) of their pieces. In many cases the artists with more exposure to Anglo culture and markets, such as Robinson (who lived in Phoenix), Roanhorse (who exhibited as far away as New York) and Fred Peshlakai (who had his own store in Los Angeles) were more likely to use a hallmark. Still, even for those three it was not universal--Peshlakai was known to hallmark pieces only when requested or when entering a piece into a show, and nearly identical pieces both with and without his hallmark can be found.
It is only natural that a collector would want to know everything possible about a piece before adding it to their collection, and nothing is more important than identifying an artist and a date. The hallmark takes out much of the guesswork, and is a wonderful tool because of that. But there is a danger in collecting by hallmark, which is that a hallmark is a guarantee of origin, not of quality. A piece with Kenneth Begay's KB can be assumed to be his work, and if it has the White Hogan shop mark as well it can be reasonably dated to the 1948-1962 period. Does that hallmark make the piece better than a White Hogan piece with no hallmark, or with the hallmark of one of the other artists who worked there? Certainly not. Begay was such a fine smith that his pieces are likely to be of the highest quality, but there is no reason why an unsigned piece cannot be equally good, or maybe even better (unlikely, but possible).
Hallmarked pieces will always be very popular because much of the guesswork in owning them has been removed; a collector can match technical aspects to the maker through the hallmark, rather than having to work in a vacuum. But a hallmark on an inferior piece means one of two things: either the artist didn't do his best work, or the artist didn't actually make that particular item. Either way, collecting a bad piece with a hallmark is the wrong way to go. For a hallmark to matter, the name must match the quality. And a masterpiece with no hallmark is always better than a hallmark with no masterpiece.
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Yes but hallmarks can be fudged and that is why quality has to be examined and confirmed. Also many stones, shell and coral being used today have gone through various procedures to appear nice to be sold in the market but they are often of poor quality and color in their natural state. I only wish that more artist would be able to educate themselves about what is going on in the market and also to be able to answer customers questions about the products and elements that they use to make their products. So many times I have asked shops about what has been dyed or stabilized and most of people running them do not even know or say everything has been treated except for spiny oyster or shell, which is often not the case. Most the old pieces have an energy about them because they were made with stones, coral or shells that were natural of good quality in their natural state or else from local regional mines including silver/gold and other metals This does not happen anymore because everything is bought and sold from somewhere else or a main refinery and sometimes the quality cannot even be verified or known because of how the product has already been processed. So new jewelry pieces even though they may be masterpieces in how they look and in how they were made do not necessarily have the energy of the old pieces because of the products that were used to make them were not of good natural quality. Therefore the quality of jewelry is not just in how something looks and was made but also in the elements that were used to make it. There are many great artist who do very fine work but many of them do not care so much about where they got something or how it was processed as long as they can keep doing their art and sell their work. I hope more artist will take the time to examine their own knowledge about the products they use and to look into what is happening in the world and going on in the mining industry. Sometimes quality also overrides the quantity of pieces being made when it comes to something being real masterpiece. Unfortunately our world has become so money-driven or stuck in survival mode that we have lost our ethics and integrity as people and as artists. Hallmarks, although they carry something special about an artists and the culture, family or group they represent, the quality in how something was made or the products that were used to make it, will have different meaning to people based on their knowledge and understanding of the art and the products that were used. Beauty is not just external but also internal, and a masterpiece made from natural elements also has an internal nature that should be acknowledged.
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