African art in Western collections
Some African objects had been collected by Europeans for centuries, and there had been industries producing some types, especially carvings in ivory, for European markets in some coastal regions. Between 1890 and 1918 the volume of objects greatly increased as Western colonial expansion in Africa led to the removal of many pieces of sub-Saharan African art that were subsequently brought to Europe and displayed.[1] These objects entered the collections of natural history museums, art museums (both encyclopedic and specialist) and private collections in Europe and the United States. About 90% of Africa's cultural heritage is believed to be located in Europe, according to French art historians.[2]
Initially mostly seen as illustrating the ethnology of different African cultures, appreciation of pieces as artworks grew during the 20th century. Only towards the end of the century was "modern" African art in fine art genres accepted as significant.[3]
19th century
Before the
Starting in the 1870s, thousands of African sculptures arrived in Europe in the aftermath of colonial conquest, exploratory expeditions and Christian missionary activity. Many reached museums such as the Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro, founded in 1878 in Paris, and its counterparts in other European cities.[5] At the time, these objects were treated as artifacts of colonized cultures rather than as artworks and were very cheap, often sold in flea markets and pawnshops.[5]
For the discussion about the restitution of African art following the announcement by French president Emmanuel Macron in 2017, see the report on the restitution of African cultural heritage.
European collections
The different histories of museums in Europe and the United States affected the collecting and display of African art in both places.
Royal Museum for Central Africa in Belgium
In 1897,
British Museum
The Sainsbury African Galleries in the British Museum in London display 600 objects from the largest permanent collection of African arts and culture in the world. The three permanent galleries provide a substantial exhibition space for the museum's African collection, comprising over 200,000 objects. This curatorial scope encompasses both archaeological and contemporary objects, including both unique masterpieces of artistry and objects of everyday life. A great addition was material amassed by Sir Henry Wellcome, which was donated by the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum in 1954.
Highlights of the African collection include the
The
Around 200 of the bronzes were passed on to the British Museum, while the remainder were divided among a variety of collections, with the majority being purchased by Felix von Luschan on behalf of the Königliches Museum für Völkerkunde in Berlin (the present-day Ethnological Museum).[9] In 1936, Oba Akenzua II began the movement to return the corpus of objects now known in modern discourse as the 'Benin Bronzes'.
Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro
The Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro was the first
The Glendonwyn Collection
The Glendonwyn Collection comprises over 3,000 objects. Initiated in the XX century by Manuel González Scott-Glendonwyn, its scope encompasses from archaeological to XIX century objects. Most of the pieces were added to the collection in the 1960’s. A trilogy of three books titled “Art of Black Africa: The Glendonwyn Collection” was published in the 1990’s.[14] Features of the Glendonwyn Collection include multiple Benin and Igbo-Ukwu bronze sculptures, The Benin Massacre bronze sculpture (a magnificent representation of the
In the year 1999 the Spanish Government initiated negotiations to convince The Glendonwyn Collection owners to stablish a museum in Madrid. Negotiations failed in 2002 with the death of the head of the family, although in the 1999-2002 period, several expositions were presented in Spain’s public museums. The Glendonwyn Collection is currently divided between Madrid, Tenerife and Dubai.
Museum of African Art (Belgrade)
The
National Museum of World Cultures in the Netherlands
Jointly administered by the
African art in ethnological collections
Initially, all African art objects were viewed as
African art and Western Modernism
During the early 1900s, the aesthetics of traditional African sculpture became a powerful influence among European artists who formed an avant-garde in the development of modern art, known as the "
American collections
The 1913 Armory Show marked a seminal moment for America’s avant-garde. An exposition of about 1,300 works, it introduced the New York art audience to movements like Cubism, Fauvism and Futurism, as well as the work of European artists including Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Marcel Duchamp. The Armory Show and its promotion of Modernism also helped create a taste and a market for African art in New York.[5]
Notably, in 1914 two New York galleries introduced African sculpture to their audiences:
New York City progressively positioned itself as a central marketplace for African art.
Brooklyn Museum
In 1903, Stewart Culin (1858–1929) became the founding curator of the Department of Ethnology at the Museum of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, now the Brooklyn Museum.[20] Culin, a self-taught ethnologist, built the foundation of four curatorial collections for the Museum, acquiring objects representing African, Asian, Native American, and Eastern European cultures. Culin was among the first curators to recognize museum installation as an art form. He was also among the first to display ethnological collections as art objects, not as ethnographic specimens. This approach is evidenced in his exhibition "Primitive Negro Art, Chiefly from the Belgian Congo". The exhibition opened in April 1923, and displayed African objects he had acquired in Europe from dealers.
Barnes Foundation
Museum of Primitive Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Founded in 1954 by
National Museum of African Art
The National Museum of African Art in Washington D.C. was founded by Warren M. Robbins in 1964 as a private and relatively small collection. In 1979 the collection, by then about 8,000 objects, was taken over by the Smithsonian Institution and is now housed in a central if underground location on the National Mall.
Problems of display
Many scholars and curators have debated the efficacy of different modes of display of African art in Western museums. Generally, scholars agree that the Western art museum was, and continues to be, incompatible with the contexts from which most traditional
"Art museums reinforced hierarchies of value based on media or genre, favoring paintings and sculpture created solely for artistic appreciation. In contrast, the visual arts of Africa encompass not only sculpture in wood and metal but also beadwork, textiles, basketry, and other works of diverse media, all of which may hold equal value for their creators. And while aesthetics may guide the production of art in Africa, often there are other social, religious, or political concerns that inform its design and use. With this range of forms and materials and the different circumstances of creation and use within society, the diverse arts of Africa were not suited to the aesthetic hierarchies and systems of classification established by art museums. Moreover, museum practices of collecting and display emphasized the artist as individual genius, the school of artists working in a similar style and vein, and chronology. Such categorization was not easily replicated with African objects, which were often collected with fragmentary documentation that rarely identified the individual artist or the specific time period of creation."[6]
Post-1980s African art
Post-1980s curatorial approaches to collecting and displaying historical African art tend towards greater specialization, broadening definitions, and a desire for contextualization.[6]
Curatorial debate surrounds questions about where boundaries should be drawn between traditional and modern, between African and the
Notes
- 1.^ In 1903, the League of the Empire was founded in England with the aim of bringing children from different parts of the Empire into contact with one another through correspondence, lectures and exchanges. A distinguished group of museum directors and officials headed a sub-committee of the League entitled 'School Museum Committee.'
References
- ^ ISBN 0300068905.
- ^ Owolabi, Tife (February 20, 2022). "Nigeria's looted Benin bronzes returned, more than a century later". www.reuters.com. Retrieved February 20, 2022.
- JSTOR 27934077.
- ^ a b Enid Schildkrout and Curtis A. Keim, ed. (1998). The Scramble for Art in Central Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- ^ a b c d e f g Denise, Murrell (April 2008). "African Influences in Modern Art". Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
- ^ a b c d e Berzock, Kathleen Bickford; Christa Clark (2011). Representing Africa in American Art Museums. Seattle & London: University of Washington Press. pp. 3–19.
- ^ "History: From Congo Museum to RMCA". Royal Museum for Central Africa. Archived from the original on 3 November 2013. Retrieved 8 October 2013.
- ISBN 1560986107.
- ^ von Luschan, Feliz (1919). Die Altertümer von Benin. Berlin.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ Jean Paul Crespelle, The Fauves, tr. Anita Brookner, Greenwich, Connecticut: New York Graphic Society, 1962, p. 114.
- ISBN 978-0-385-26186-9, p. 266.
- ISBN 978-0-300-10412-7, p. 51this is "generally accepted" although denied by Picasso himself.
- ISBN 978-0-465-01859-8, p. 92: [A]lthough the sharp change in the right-hand demoiselles occurred after Picasso's visit to Trocadéro, . . . . [i]t turns out that African art supported his conceptual approach and convinced him of the deep meaning of geometry as the language of the new art."
- ISBN 9788460446194.
- ISBN 978-86-85249-21-1.
- ^ "About the Museum". Museum of African Art. Retrieved 23 February 2021.
- ^ Hickley, Catherine (2020-10-08). "The Netherlands: Museums confront the country's colonial past". UNESCO. Archived from the original on 2020-11-01. Retrieved 2021-04-19.
- ^ Museums Journal. 4: 101. September 1904.
{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link) - ^ Culin, Stewart (1923). "Negro art". Brooklyn Museum Quarterly. 10 (3): 120.
- ^ ISBN 9780872731639.
- ^ a b "Special Exhibition Tells Story of How African Artifacts Were First Recognized as Art in U.S." Press Room. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 8 October 2013.
- ^ Albert C. Barnes to Paul Guillaume, November 5, 1923, the Barnes Foundation Archives, Merion, Pennsylvania.
- ^ ISBN 9780295989617.
- ^ Feiger, Leah (22 September 2020). "Colonizers Stole Africa's Art; This Man Is Taking It Back". Vice. Retrieved 8 February 2021.
- ^ Haynes, Suyin (14 October 2020). "A French Court Fined Activists for Attempted Theft of a Museum Artifact. They Say It Belongs to Africans". Time. Retrieved 8 February 2021.
- ^ Atwood, Roger (17 September 2012). "African Art: Beyond the Masks". ARTnews. Retrieved 16 October 2013.
- ^ Cotter, Holland (18 July 1993). "ART VIEW; Art That's Valued for What It Can Do". The New York Times. Retrieved 16 October 2013.
- ^ "Museum of Contemporary African Art". Archived from the original on 2013-03-07. Retrieved 2013-10-17.
- ^ Almino, Elisa Wouk (2017-09-22). "A closer look at Africa's first contemporary art museum". Hyperallergic. Archived from the original on 2017-09-22. Retrieved 2021-04-25.
External links
- Art of Oceania, Africa, and the Americas from the Museum of Primitive Art: an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries (fully available online as PDF)