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Collections / African, Oceanic, and Native American Art
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About the Collection
Highlights of African art at the museum include a ceramic portrait head from the ancient civilization of Ife, a thousand-year-old wooden horse-and-rider from Djenne, and a cast bronze leopard and a carved ivory tusk, both from the eighteenth-century Kingdom of Benin. Other important pieces are a rare Luba mask, one of only two known in the world, a dramatic dance mask often known as a “firespitter” from Cote d’Ivoire, and a palace door created by the famed Yoruba artist Areogun of Osi. The Native American galleries are equally rich in examples of the highest quality art, such as our unparalleled three-thousand-year-old Olmec jade mask, an exceptional nineteenth-century Sun Mask from the Northwest Coast, and a monumental pipe in the form of a bound prisoner, made in southeastern United States around 1200. Additional masterworks include the finely worked gold earspools from the ancient Andes, and a beaded man’s shoulder pouch made in Minnesota in the early 1800s. Our Oceanic collection contains world-class pieces, such as the Maori Poutokomanawa (Post Figure) created in the 1840s, the three fabulous Malagan figures, an early Papuan Gope Board, and the Bis Pole, a centerpiece of the gallery. Collection Related Online Resource
Curatorial Staff
Jan-Lodewijk Grootaers, Ph.D. Joe D. Horse Capture Molly Huber |
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