The price tag of African American artists work is growing dramatically. Thom Pegg owns the Tyler Fine Arts gallery at Skinker and Forest Park. For the past five years, Thom has been busy collecting African American art. There are roughly three-dozen works in his collection. It includes three sculptures by St. Louisan Houston Chandler.

Pegg says most African-American art is quickly shipped to New York and sold immediately. His hope was to collect the work into a significant exhibit.

“There’s some history there and a heritage there. It just wasn’t really well known, until recently.”said Thom Pegg

Thom is not just buying and selling contemporary art. He’s showing how it evolved over the years. Thom says. “The African-American artist in 1930, let’s say, would be facing personal circumstances that were much different from their white counterpart.”

Thom felt it important to see black art in a century-spanning exhibit. Creations like Charles Sebree’s “Young Woman with White Gloves,” for example, was influenced by Picasso back in 1950. Donald Charpiot’s “Jacob’s Ladder” from 1940 and Palmer Hayden’s “Makin’ Pie” from that same year is also in the collection.

Thom Pegg predicts that Black Art’s value will increase from an investment standpoint. The art was acquired primarily from private collections. The work in this collection has been out of circulation for decades.

President Obama has also voiced his intention of adding more African-American art to the White House collection.