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Weekly UpdatesSometimes you have to travel far from home to find a piece of home. Case in point, New York City.
When you think of New York, it's hard to imagine an area more different than rural Alaska. And yet, that said, the Big Apple provides a terrific little gem that houses Alaska Native artwork.
The gem is Alaska on Madison, an art gallery located in one of the city's most exclusive areas, the "Upper East Side." Its owner is 61 year old, Brooklyn-born jack Bryan, a former New York City school principal.
Bryan's second-floor gallery is only 900 square feet, but he's confidant he has a collection worth seeing and purchasing.
"There are many things here," Brian says, "that would not be readily found in Alaska."
Alaska on Madison sits at Madison Avenue and East 74th Street. Because of its location, the gallery is an oddity of sorts. It's in a community known more for being a bastion of New York boutique sensibility, as opposed to a place for displaying Alaska Native expressions.
But, Bryan makes the concept work.
Alaska on Madison has a diverse collection, which includes Alaska carved pipes, cribbage boards crafted by Eskimo artists, tools, figures, handles and armor plates. A dozen items, Bryan says, include harpoon points and doll heads dating back to 250 B.C.
Bryan estimates he has 100 to 150 Alaska pieces, some of them contemporary. Alaska Native artists that regularly show in the gallery include Susie Silook, Tom Akeya and Karen Olanna. The gallery also displays Inuit and Northwest Indian Art.
The Alaska pieces range in price from $1,000 to $35,000.
Some of the work purchased in Bryan's gallery, he says, ends up in museums for the public to see.
"There are three pieces from the gallery currently at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which came from a client who purchased those pieces and generously bequeathed them to the museum," Bryan says.
But, he also believes that private collecting is a form of preservation.
"In a very rapidly changing world," Bryan says, "it is the collector himself who purchases a piece for what it is and what it represents; that collector has taken a piece of a culture and has preserved that culture in his home."
It's not just New Yorkers who purchase pieces at the Gallery. Bryan says he gets national and international return customers. One assumes they return regularly. Bryan's been in business since 1979.
Bryan speaks with a thick Brooklyn accent and slightly resembles former television talk show host Merv Griffin. His introduction to Native American work came as a fluke. While on vacation in Montreal in 1957, Bryan walked into an antique store and saw his first piece of Inuit art. "It completely bowled me over," he says.
That initial reaction turned into a passion for collecting and eventually to the decision to open the gallery. Today, Bryan notes, Alaska on Madison is the only public gallery of its kind in New York City.
Bryan visits Alaska almost every year, and has cultivated relationships with Alaskan artists. He acquires work from his travels and visiting private collections.
Next time you're in New York, Bryan says you can visit the gallery, even for just a causal viewing.
Most who visit are not from Alaska, and for many, Bryan's gallery is an opportunity to get a new glimpse of work they may have only casually experienced in a museum.
"The gallery offers," Bryan says, "a positive experience to both the fledging collector and the veteran collector. And whether or not a purchase is made, the experience is both educational and positive. For the person who walks in, they will be exposed to a unique and rare art form."
Alaska on Madison is located at 937 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10021. Jack Bryan can be reached at the gallery at (212) 879-1782. The gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday, 11:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Visit Bryan's Web site at: alaskaonmadison.com.
Seth Linden is the Washington bureau chief and correspondent for KTUU-TV (NBC), which is based in Anchorage. His reports also air on KTVF-TV (NBC) in Fairbanks.
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