Robert H. Banks, AAA, owner of Banks Fine Art LLC, established 1980, is an independent appraiser with more than 20 years of experience appraising fine art including paintings, watercolors, drawings and prints. Mr. Banks has been dealing in American & European paintings for over 25 years, and is a licensed auctioneer conducting fine art auctions for the past 17 years. He is a certified member of the Appraisers Associations of America (AAA) and is an elected member of the National Board of the Appraisers Association of America, Inc. He has spoken numerous times at the National Conference for the AAA on both his specialty and on appraisal methodology.

Mr. Banks’ company, Banks Fine Art, LLC, is a high volume business representing artists worldwide and sells to galleries internationally. Mr. Banks often purchases artwork overseas and at major auction houses on behalf of private clients and dealers. He is constantly traveling to authenticate, lecture and purchase fine works of art. His appraisal duties include reviewing, documenting, and valuing art collections. He has extensive experience in appraising property for insurance purposes, damage claims, dissolution of property and for the IRS. His clients include the Dallas Museum of Art, SMU and the DEA. Mr. Banks has written a guidebook, How to Buy Art Wisely, and lectures frequently on purchasing art and the intricacies of the art market. He is listed in Who’s Who in American Art and has done appraisals for public television’s Antiques Roadshow.

Brenda Simonson-Mohle, ISA CAPP, and owner of Signet Art, has over 24 years of extensive experience as an art consultant and fine art appraiser. She began her professional career in 1981 as a corporate art consultant engaged in the selection, acquisition, custom frame design, and brokering of fine art. Her extensive knowledge covering a broad range of media – from works on paper, to canvas, fibers, and three-dimensional pieces – places her in the higher echelons of art experts with extensive knowledge of the art market, the artists, their work, and valuations.

In 1987, she founded her own art consultancy and, at the request of a growing number of clients, began offering appraisal services for fine and decorative art. She is a certified member of the International Society of Appraisers with a specialty in fine art, including paintings, prints, drawings, sculpture and tapestries. She has appeared as a featured appraiser on the popular national HGTV show, The Appraisal Fair, and is a veteran speaker at numerous appraisal and special events.

Jane C.H. Jacob holds an undergraduate degree in fine arts from the University of North Texas, a Masters degree in Arts Administration from Columbia College and the Certificate in Appraisal Studies from New York University. Specializing in 19th/20th/ and 21st century fine art, focusing on European and American artists and in issues involving stolen art, her practice provides art advisory, appraisal, authentication facilitation, documentation and provenance research services for private and corporate art collections and collectors, attorneys, museums, educational institutions, trusts, brokers and insurance businesses. Jane Jacob has more than 20 years of professional museum and market experience in American and European art and has held positions in administration at art institutions such as the Dallas Museum of Art, the Worcester Art Museum, and at the Terra Museum of American Art, where she served as Deputy Director until 1999. She is an experienced professional with comprehensive knowledge of how art markets operate and how individual and corporate art collections are built and documented.

Ms. Jacob is an expert in the area of stolen art. Her Masters dissertation on stolen art was entitled Stolen Art: The Case for Registration, which is available through the Library of Congress and the Ryerson and Burnham Libraries, in Chicago, Illinois. There is much discussion about her title registry initiative in the fine arts field, and the Arts Loss Register and major art insurance carriers have adopted plans to implement such a process. Ms. Jacob writes articles, lectures and has participated on panels and in seminars on the issues of the stolen art, due diligence, provenance issues and the protection of art collections.

Jane C.H. Jacob is a member of the board of directors for the Appraisers Association of America (AAA) and holds certified status (through examination) with the same. Jacob currently serves on the board of directors for Lawyers of the Creative Arts. In 2005, Ms. Jacob was certified in the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP); the work products produced are conducted according to those standards.

Robert Bijou,Bijou Fine Arts was founded by Robert Bijou in La Jolla, California twenty-five years ago. Now located in Santa Barbara, for the past twenty years Robert Bijou has been a passionate collector, consultant, appraiser, and dealer in the area of Latin American art with a particular emphasis on the arts of Mexico. He and his wife, ceramic artist Irma Vega de Bijou, have hosted numerous museum tours of their collection in their Spanish Colonial home, Hacienda del Bosque, and have loaned artwork from their collection to various museums, such as the Los Angeles County Museum, and the Santa Barbara Museum. Mr. Bijou has frequently provided his expertise to auction houses, collectors and dealers regarding Diego Rivera, Alfredo Ramos Martinez, and many other artists in Mexico and Latin America.

Burton Dunbar is the founder of Art Historians’ Research and Appraisals based in Kansas City, MO. With over twenty-five years experience as a fine art appraiser, he and his group of specialists have appraised and authenticated art works for well over 1,500 clients, including private collectors, museums, insurance companies, commercial art galleries, financial institutions, law firms, and other institutions.

A full professor and department chairperson at a research university, he holds a Ph.D. in art history, with training in this country and in Europe. He is past president of the Midwest Art History Society, an organization of over 600 members of university faculty and museum curators active in the central states. He has served as a consultant to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO and the St. Louis Art Museum, among other museums. He is a member of the College Art Association of America, the Midwest Art History Society, and the Appraisers Association of America.

In addition to two books, he is author of various articles in such scholarly journals as the Art Quarterly, the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, the Sixteenth Century Journal, Master Drawings, and Oud Holland, among others. His appraisal opinions have been cited in the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, and the Kansas City Star. His fifteen part series on Studies in Art History was broadcast in Kansas City, Missouri, on public television between 1995 and 2001.

His appraisal specialties include all aspects of European and American fine art from the sixteenth century to the present, including Old Master, nineteenth century and modern paintings, drawings, and prints.

He heads a group of six other appraisers whose specialties include 1) African Art, African Art of the Diaspora, and Folk Art; 2) Textiles and Oriental Carpets, 3) Native American Art, 4) Decorative Arts, 5) Far Eastern Art, and 6) American and European Contemporary Art.

Ron Stark, Since 1976, Ron Stark has been the director of S/R Laboratories Animation Art Conservation Center in Westlake Village, California, the only facility in the world dedicated to the preservation of the art used in the making of animated films. S/R serves museums, galleries, and collectors worldwide, and has worked with most of the major film studios on special projects. He is widely recognized as the leading authority on the conservation and collecting of animation art and related items.

Ron has served as consulting conservator and archivist to the Disney World Wide Publishing and Disney Art Editions divisions in Burbank, providing guidance for the preservation of over one million historic images.

Ron was associate producer for Ub Iwerks; the Man Behind the Mouse for Leslie Iwerk’s biographical film about her grandfather, now in release by Buena Vista.

Ron is a member of several professional organizations including the Directors Guild of America, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, The International Society of Appraisers, and the Western Association for Art Conservation. He is co-author of The Complete Kodak Animation Book and numerous articles on the conservation and collecting of animation art. S/R Laboratories has received commendations from the Los Angeles Mayor’s office, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, and the Ventura County Board of Supervisors.

Amanda Miller, Amanda Miller’s area of appraisal specialty is Chinese and Japanese decorative arts. She has more than 12-years experience with Bonhams & Butterfields as a member of our Asian Works of Art Department. Ms. Miller holds a bachelor's degree in art history from Yale University, with a second concentration in Eastern religious studies. She also holds an MBA from the University of Phoenix. Ms. Miller has appeared regularly on "Appraise It," an HGTV program, as well as in several seasons of the popular PBS series “Antiques Roadshow.”

Whitney Ganz, B.A, Art History, Stanford University, 1979

I have been the director of William A. Karges Fine Art since 1988. William A. Karges Fine Art is considered by many to be the leading gallery in the nation that specifically specializes in paintings done by late 19th & early 20th century California artists. During this period, I have bought and sold literally thousands of paintings. I am considered one of the leading experts in this field, especially in regards to current market conditions, and have appraised paintings for both private collectors and major museums.

I have served as the President and Vice-President of the Historical Collections Committee of the Laguna Art Museum and as the Program Chairman and Treasurer of the American Art Council of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

I have also participated in a number panel discussions, symposiums, and lectures as an expert in early California art and have produced five major monographs on specific early California artists. In addition, I have consulted on virtually every museum exhibition that features the artists from the above period over the last fifteen years.

Leslie Sacks, Leslie has curated, arranged and supported traveling exhibitions of Henry Moore, Marino Marini, Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall and other modern and contemporary masters in conjunction with galleries in Europe, North America, the Far East, Israel and Australia. He’s established extensive associations with dealers throughout Europe and North America for the sourcing and placing of masterworks and published numerous exhibition catalogues, catalogues raisonne and miscellaneous educational materials. As well he has curated and developed collections and investment portfolios of modern 20th century masters, Impressionist and Post Impressionist masters, German Expressionists, American Contemporary masters, African tribal art, Modern illustrated books and Chinese antiquities.

Leslie established Les Art International, Johannesburg, South Africa – which remained through 2004 as the only gallery in South Africa devoted entirely to 19th and 20th Century European and American art. Leslie hosted the first one-man South African exhibitions of work by David Hockney, Marino Marini and other 20th Century masters.

Leslie Sacks Fine Art in Brentwood, California was established in 1992. He continues his exhibition featuring works from a substantially owned inventory of Modern & Contemporary Master graphics, works on paper, canvas and sculpture.

Susan Tarman ISA, owner of Tarman Galleries, Ltd. since 1991. She has completed courses in the Appraisal Studies Program at NYU, Old Masters and 19th Century European Painting, graduate level courses in art history from the University of New Mexico, the core and re-qualification courses from the International Society of Appraisers and the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP).

Ms Tarman has served on the board of the Santa Fe Gallery Association, was a founding member and served on the board of the Santa Fe Chapter of Executive Women International and lectures to national and local organizations on the topics of appraising, antique furniture, silver and fine art.

Ms. Tarman has traveled the world living in Denmark, Germany and Australia. She has lived in Santa Fe, NM since 1981 where she apprenticed with Victor Hansen in the buying, selling and appraising of antiques and fine art. Her expertise is in American and European art from the 19th to the mid 20th century with an emphasis on deceased artists from the southwest and California.

Andrew Roughton has been dealing in American & European paintings for over 30 years and has been an independent appraiser, with more than 25 years of experience in appraising fine art, including paintings, watercolors, drawings and prints. He has lectured numerous times on the subject of collecting art and the history of art.

Mr. Roughton represents primarily artists of the late 19th and early 20th century periods. He deals with galleries internationally; collects and maintains one of the largest collections of catalogs from the Salon Exhibitions from 1885-1936; and has been compiling a collection for a comprehensive book on the Paris Salons Shows.

Mr. Roughton was the first President and founder of the Mckinney Art Dealers Association and the North Dallas Gallery walk. He was associated with Roughton Galleries, owned by his bother, for 15 years before going on his own in the 90's. In the last seven years he has contributed to several catalog raisonnes on various artist in Paris and is currently writing a book on a local artists he has represented over the past 30 years. He is now with RW Fine Arts.