Establishing Value In Art by Artists from Africa and its Diaspora: Appraiser Donna Thompson Ray
On her practice: “I see my work as a kind of social activism.”
Donna Thompson Ray is a long-standing professional go-to for valuation services, securing the cultural legacy of art from Africa and the African diaspora, including contemporary Caribbean/Latino/Latin American art. The Harlem-born, Jamaican-American fine art appraiser has been part of the international arts community for over thirty years and serves as a consultant to the board of directors of one of the largest private collections of African art in the greater New York City area.
I’ve had the pleasure of bumping into Ms. Thompson Ray numerous times at leading art fairs, most notably at Art Basel Miami Beach, where she took the time to educate me about art from the African diaspora over Cuban food; at The Armory Show, ADAA, and AIPAD in New York City. Today she’s the owner of ATFA Appraisals, based in New Jersey, with its mission to assist art collectors, artists and their archives, and the institutions working with them.
She is truly a multi-faceted professional. Part of the Thompson Ray legacy includes a stint in London where her career was established at Westbourne Gallery, founded by Ghanaian ex-boxer, Sonny McNorthey. The experience set the course of her career.
Here Thompson Ray learned about contemporary African art and art produced in South America and the Caribbean. She showcased and became acquainted with the work of Frank Bowling, Emmanuel Jegede, Magdalene Odundo, Rudi Patterson, Charles Sambono, Aubrey Williams, and Bruce Onobrakpeya, among others. Over time, Thompson Ray became the gallery’s director while continuing to practice photography.
We sat down with for a conversation with Thompson Ray about what she has been up to as an appraiser in supporting artists’ legacy.
“Appraisers are in the background. They’re documenting value,” she says. “As an appraiser, I look for traditions that may be referenced, or comparable works that have been in the market and how the market has responded to particular value characteristics,” she notes. “Value also depends on provenance (history of ownership), and the artist’s position in the art world through exhibitions and publications, not to mention trends, and underlying broad influences such as social, economic, political, and environmental forces, and the market forces of supply and demand.”
Appraisers of color have even more profound roles in this market. “We can identify value in an oft-overlooked part of the art world,” Thompson Ray continues. “I have read instances of mainstream art editorial coverage that showcased insensitivity, straight- up ignorance surrounding the writer’s knowledge of African American life, history, and culture.” As a consequence, she says, “Entire movements of artistic production have systematically been excluded, ill-reported from the mainstream narrative.”
Lacking recognition and acceptance for so long by the mainstream art community, artists of color have been nurtured by a parallel universe - the African American art ecosystems and their allies in African and other diverse communities: “Collectors, HBCUs, Black-founded and -operated art centers/community organizations, art historians, woke critics/intellectuals/writers/galleries/dealers - who have known the excellence of Black artists for the past hundred fifty years,” she reminds us. “Their talents were already validated before the rest of the world knew of them. There’s been improvement at the mainstream level today, but I believe the process is still slow-going.”
Controlling the Narrative
So it’s not surprising to learn that Thompson Ray is keen on controlling the narrative. “There’s a need for art historians, appraisers to actually see and evaluate Black visual art. I see my work as a kind of social activism.” Her focus: the Caribbean, Latin America, and the US.
The timing is right. Over the past decade, the global art market ecosystem has seen expanded interest in artists of color. There have been important, internationally recognized exhibitions such as El Anatsui: Triumphant Scale at Haus der Kunst (Munich); the Tate Modern’s Soul of a Nation; Howardena Pindell’s first major survey at Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) in Richmond, Relational Undercurrents: Contemporary Art of the Caribbean Archipelago as part of The Getty Foundation’s Pacific Standard Time: LA / LA, and recently Diaspora Vibe Cultural Arts Incubator (DVCAI) Inter | Sectionality: Diaspora Art from the Creole City, exhibited at George Washington University's Corcoran School of the Arts and Design.
Tied to museum exhibitions are the notable commissions, art prizes, auction sales, and blue-chip gallery representations of Simone Leigh, Sam Gilliam, Nathaniel Mary Quinn, Kerry James Marshall, Ed Clark, and many others. “You can increasingly find art by African American artists and other artists of the African diaspora in the major fairs,” she points out. ”Basel, the Armory, Frieze…”
A number of factors indicate that mainstream recognition is evolving at rapid speed. “The art market is always on the prowl for new markets, new talents,” Thompson Ray claims. “Today there’s a lot of money looking for places to invest, and there’s heightened awareness of Black talent.” To wit, the portrait commissions of President and First Lady Barack and Michelle Obama by artists Amy Sherald and Kehinde Wiley. “If galleries and museums want to make this interest a success rather than a fleeting opportunity, they will need to be committed to nurturing these artists and understanding their history,” she cautions.
Documentation, Preservation
Thompson Ray worries this new, burgeoning notoriety in art could be short-circuited by what she sees as major challenges among some Black artists: insufficient consistent record-keeping and documentation. “Maintaining and organizing one’s artworks, staying on top of issues of preservation, and thoughts about estate planning – such as how to distribute works to loved ones and institutions – are all important in an artist’s journey. It’s like having two jobs.”
Thompson Ray says she’s more and more concerned about preservation. “Many Haitian works produced at mid-20th century, for example, are works on board, so weather conditions and where these works are stored are a concern,” she says. That makes appraising such works tricky. Some traditional African and Caribbean works are often made from ‘wood, tree barks, and other local, organic materials.’ Some are installations.
How difficult is it to assign monetary value to objects like these?
“These works are ‘assemblages,’ drawn from folk art practices that are hundreds of years old,” she replies. “The quick answer is, it’s not difficult to assess value, and they can be insured. You have to look at the quality characteristics of a property such as condition, ranking, style, provenance, materials, size, among other elements,” she continues.
Thompson Ray is also involved with preserving the culture surrounding works of art. A doctoral candidate herself, she serves as consultant on the Board of Directors of the Museum of Art and Origins (MoAAO) in New York City, housed in a NYC Historic Landmark Brownstone, that is also the site of Museum Bed and Breakfast. MoAaO hosts lectures on African art, concerts with internationally renowned musicians, and special exhibitions. Founded by Dr. George Nelson Preston, a Columbia University graduate in art history and accomplished artist, the museum is modeled on other private houses that contained important collections and later became museums: El Museo Frida Kahlo (Casa Azul) the home of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera in Mexico City; Finca La Vigía, Ernest Hemingway’s home in San Francisco de Paula, Cuba; and Musée National Eugène Delacroix, the studio and home of Delacroix in Paris.
“One of Dr. Preston’s main objectives is to have a space where people could study objects and freely access support literature, instead of going to a public library or archive where you might have more restrictions,” she explains. The museum is open to the public by appointment. In the founder’s own words, “MoAAO is organized to get around the limitations of established (public) museums….(that rely) heavily upon old money and corporate money. As a result, many objects get exhibited due to the ownership, or the address in which they reside. Consequently, that has a negative effect on scholarship… that process demonstrates a bias that dovetails into such issues as who gets to present the new scholarship to a public audience, and the lack of racial diversity in who engages the public.
Post-Pandemic Museums
Museums have been in the public eye during the pandemic, when systemic inequities became more apparent and concurrent uprisings demanding racial justice occurred. The paucity of Blacks and people of color in high positions in these institutions became obvious and museums pledged to take corrective measures. “The Board of Directors’ response is key to progress,” opines Thompson Ray. “Hiring more Black and other professionals of color in leadership positions is a start. I like the attention this issue is getting, but I hope it’s not just a ‘COVID moment’ or perfunctory response to the protests. I hope they will walk the talk. I want to see the receipts!”
Thompson Ray has kept busy during the pandemic, particularly in her role as an art advisor. “Collectors want to sell works and/or purchase new works at more accessible prices during these uncertain times,” she says. “I continue to receive appraisal assignments, have formed a collaboration with a long-time appraiser colleague, and have made time to advance my studies learning Haitian dance traditions and Creole – a revolutionary language.” That’s more knowledge she can add into her skill set as a leading appraiser of art from Africa and its diaspora.
——————————————————————————————————————Acknowledgements:
Interview by: Shellie Karabell, Journalist
Ellie Meek Tweedy, Editor
Credits:
Young Girl Seated in a Restaurant, 1976. Estate of Emmanuel Merisier, Toussaint Louverture Foundation
Today I Ask Yesterday About Tomorrow, 2019. Kimani Beckford, National Gallery of Jamaica West, Montego Bay.
Bamileke (Cameroon) Wooden Head Mask. Wood. Provenance: Merton Simpson Gallery.
Donna Thompson Ray with Dr. George Nelson Preston, artist, scholar and founder/director of the Museum of Art and Origins, New York, celebrating his solo exhibition, “The Creative and Spiritual World of George Nelson Preston” at the Burger Gallery, Kean University, Spring 2019.