BIOGRAPHY OF

DR.  G. ALLEN SOLEM

Dr. G. Allen Solem was curator of invertebrates at the Field Museum of Natural History.  He was a distinguished academic and authored many books.  His two passions were snails and tribal artifacts.  He was a world expert on the former.  He began field collecting in 1961.  It is believed he also acquired pieces from respected dealers like Bud Holland in Chicago and J.J. Klejman in New York.  Later in the 1970 he was buying from various galleries in Sydney and Melbourne.  Although he collected African and New Guinea art, his most important pieces were Australian Aboriginal where he spent much of his time studying snails in the Kimberley region of Western Australia.

We acquired the Tribal art collection of Dr. Solem from his daughter living in Southern California.  His collection is fresh to the market and had been in storage for 20 years.  His daughter told me that the artifacts in his collection were of paramount importance to him and even took precedence over his own family.