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James Willis has been collecting tribal art since 1955, and opened his public gallery 1972. Initially, the gallery exhibited both tribal and contemporary art. He then specialized in tribal art, and was the first gallery in the United States to hold specific tribal theme exhibits. The public gallery was established for thirty years. Since 2001, he has had a private gallery by appointment.He was on the board of the San Francisco Craft and Folk art Museum, a founding member of Friends of Ethnic Art in San Francisco, member of the Ancient and Tribal Arts Study Committee of the M. H. De Young Museum, the center for African Art in New York, founder and first president of the San Francisco Art Dealers Association, and member of BRUNEAF Association in Belgium. Since 2003, he has been appointed to two three-year terms to the Cultural Property Advisory Committee, which advises the President of the United States on Cultural property issues. He has traveled extensively worldwide and led trips for collectors to Europe and Africa. He has participated in tribal exhibitions in Brussels, Paris and New York, as well as the San Francisco Tribal Show, the San Francisco Contemporary Art Show and the San Francisco Fall Antiques Show. He is active in appraisals and expertises. Several appraisals have been for important collections, such as the Maxwell Stanley Collection of African Art, at the University of Iowa Museum; the Paul Tishman Collection, purchased by Walt Disney Corporation; the Jerry Joss Collection, at the University of California Los Angeles Collection; the collection of the Welcome Museum at UCLA, and the Christensen Collection at the Honolulu Academy of Art. Also, the Robert and Helen Kuhn Collection, the Erle Loran Collection, and the Dwight and Blossom Strong Collection for the San Francisco Fine Arts Museums. He has sold to numerous institutions such as the San Francisco Fine Arts Museums, Stanford Cantor Center of Arts, Honolulu Academy of Arts, Minneapolis Art Institute, Saint Louis Museum, Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Detroit Institute of Arts, and the Indianapolis Museum of Art. He is a lender to museums and traveling exhibitions, including the San Francisco Fine Arts Museums, Stanford Cantor Museum, Los Angeles Fowler Museum, Center for African Art in New York, Monterey Museum of Art; institutions such as the Bank of America and the San Francisco International Airport Bureau of Exhibitions and Cultural Education. |
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