Bille Hougart: Native American Jewelry Hallmark Expert - Epi. 49, Host Dr. Mark Sublette

One of the reasons I started a podcast was to try to capture
voices that I thought would be lost in the future that relate to
our profession. A distinct profession of collecting and
preserving Western and Native American art. Unfortunately,
because I interview a lot of older individuals, there is no doubt
we will at some point lose a voice.

This week we lost Bille Hougart. Bille was such an interesting
guy. I got to interview him back in May of 2019 and I wanted to
re-feature this podcast so you can see the kind of individuals
that are the foundation of our profession and love what they do.
Bille loved what he did. 

Originally, Bille was doing wildlife research. That's where he
came from, and he harnessed that researcher’s mentality and knack
for organizing large amounts of information and incorporated it
into his love for Mexican and Native American jewelry. Bille’s
research on Native American hallmarks became an invaluable
resource for all of us and we use it daily in our jewelry
identification process. So many of the hallmarks that we need to
know or try to understand were identified through Bille’s
research. The fifth Edition of Bille’s book just came out and is
available on billehougartbooks.com.

With all of that in mind, please enjoy episode 49 of Art Dealer
Diaries. I want people to be able to hear and enjoy the
magnificence of who Bille Hougart was and will always be through
his research.

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Bill Hougart whose books on Native American Silversmith's and
Mexican jewelry hallmarks are the gold standard for the
industry.  If you want to understand how Native American
signatures and Mexican Hallmarks on jewelry started and the
different types and dates of when these hallmarks began, this is
a must listen to podcast.