Arts Tribaux LLC

George Hegarty spent his career as a full professor and/or executive up to the level of president at ten universities around the world. This includes working at major universities in Africa (West, Central, and East) and Asia (Southeast and East), in regions where the majority of objects in this sale originated. Eight of these academic years were funded by Fulbright grants. As a professor, he taught, researched, published, and exhibited tribal art. His interdisciplinary doctorate included a dissertation (1978) on the literary theme of art forgery. He has curated twenty some exhibitions of tribal art at several institutions of higher education since the 1970s, solely of objects from his personal collection.

In his early years, George obtained his first authentic Native American art objects in the fifties as an American schoolboy. First purchased tribal art from markets in Africa in the sixties when he was a college student in Switzerland. Continued collecting tribal art while living in an African village as a Peace Corps volunteer. Bought tribal art in the seventies as a permanent resident of Australia when New Guinea was its territory.  From 1970 until his retirement in 2019 he lived many years as an educator mostly in Africa and Asia as well as in the United Sates. Throughout his career, he bought, traded, and sold tribal art.  For over a half century, he has aggressively visited museums, galleries, and markets on every inhabited continent. Over the years his collecting increased voluminously during his international career living in eleven countries on five continents for almost half of his adult life. Today, his tribal art collection consists of over three thousand objects. He has primarily been an educator throughout his life with only occasional selling and trading on the side. However, now that he has retired from academic life, he has been emphasizing his dealer side.