ANDRES MORAGA established his business as a private dealer of antique textile art in San Francisco in 1978. Since that time he has earned a reputation for searching out extremely rare and unusual ceremonial textiles from many traditions, with an emphasis on Africa and the Andean regions of South America.

He offers an eclectic selection of textiles, woven fiber, basketry, beadwork, tribal forms and sculpture which range from the esoteric and subtle to the visually compelling and historically important.  Research and documentation of the cultural and historic contexts of each piece are essential to his process of discovery and presentation.

Andres Moraga and Vanesssa Drake Moraga have been instrumental in cultivating interest in early textiles and fiber arts from the Congo—from the stunning skirts and prestige velvets of the Kuba kingdom to the lyrical bark paintings of the Mbuti Pygmies. They are noted experts in the weavings of the Mapuche and Pampas tribes of Chile and Argentina, as well of other Andean cultures. They have formed significant collections of textile and ethnographic objects for museums and private collectors, and have collaborated on articles and exhibitions in those areas.

Andres Moraga’s clients include major museums in the United States and Europe, such as the Chicago Art Institute; the British Museum; the Metropolitan Museum, New York; the De Young Museum, San Francisco; the Dallas Museum of Art; the Linden Museum, Stuttgart and the Musée Quai Branly, Paris.

He has been a regular exhibitor at tribal and textile art fairs in San Francisco, New York, Santa Fe, Los Angeles and London. He is also a founding member and past president of San Francisco Tribal, an art dealer association, as well as a member of ATADA, the Antique Tribal Art Dealer’s Association. All textiles and works of art offered for sale by Andres Moraga represent the highest standards of authenticity and artistic excellence.

VANESSA DRAKE MORAGA is an independent researcher, curator and writer specializing in the textile arts. She is the author of Weaving Abstraction: Kuba Textiles and the Woven Art of Central Africa (The Textile Museum, 2011) and Andean Myth and Magic (Ololo Press, 2005), and has lectured and written catalogues and essays on the textile traditions and iconography of various cultures. She is a consulting editor to Hali magazine

She recently curated the exhibition Weaving Abstraction. Kuba Textiles and the Woven Art of Central Africa at The Textile Museum, Washingto DC,  October 2011-February 2012.  The accompanying catalogue is available through The Textile Museum Shop. 

She previously curated two exhibits on Mbuti Pgymy Barkcloths: "In An Eternity of Forest: Paintings by Mbuti Women" at the UC Berkeley Art Museum (1996) and Winston-Salem State University (1998).