Allen Wardwell was a scholar, collector and curator of Northwest Coast Indian, Oceanic and African art.
Wardwell was the head of the Primitive Art Department at The Art Institute of Chicago (1960-1973) and also served as acting curator of its Decorative Arts Department (1964-1970).
He served as the director of the Asia Society Gallery (1974-1984) and the Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum in New York (1986-1990). Later he was an independent consultant, a curatorial consultant for African and Oceanic art at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and a senior consultant in American Indian art and tribal art at Christie's auction house in New York.
