Italian architect, Renzo Piano believes that museums are a place “where one should lose one’s head“. We agree. And the great thing is that we can now ‘lose our heads’ without stepping out of our front doors. Museums are transforming—they are digitalising their collections, engaging with visitors and patrons on social media, and increasingly sharing images of their collections on Instagram for all to see.
You’re probably already aware of the British Museum and MET’s Instagram accounts. So we’ve curated a list of 10 additional museums that regularly post images of African art masterpieces in their collections, keeping us in the know about recent acquisitions and events, and giving us the chance to scroll through images in the comfort of our homes.
Here are the museums with collections of stunning classic African art.
Founded in 1879, the Art Institute of Chicago now has a collection of over 400 works displayed across two galleries. Included in its collection are masks and figural sculpture, beadwork, furniture, regalia, and textiles from countries including Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Ethiopia, Mali, Morocco, Nigeria, and South Africa. The Art Institute’s collection of over 80 African ceramics is the largest in an American art museum. The full African art collection at the Art Institute is available to browse online.
The Saint Louis Art Museum began collecting African art in 1936, when very few American art museums were doing so. The Museum’s first African acquisition was a Benin bronze head. This initial purchase was reinforced during the 1940’s by additional purchases of Central and West African art, such as a Fang reliquary figure, Yaka headrest, Widekum mask, and Chokwe chief’s chair. Since those early years, the African art collection has grown to include over 1,200 works. More than half the collection is comprised of gifts from St. Louis businessman and philanthropist Morton D. May. Highlights from the African art collection at the St Louis Art Museum are available to browse online.
What’s there to say about the Quai Branly that’s not already known? How about this, the museum has a permanent collection of over 300,000 works of African art, Oceanic art, Asian art, and works from the Americas. Knew that? Did you know that the museum currently has an Instagram competition on, that sees the winner get a private guided tour of its soon-to-open temporary exhibition, “Native forests, Arts of Equatorial Africa”. Yeah, that’s news to us too! To get your creative juices flowing for the competition, check out the African art collection at the Quai Branly.
The Royal Museum of Central Africa (RMCA) in Belgium has a bit of a shady history. Built on the back of Belgium’s brutal colonisation of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, King Leopold II established the Congo Museum in 1898. More recently, after three years of renovations, the RMCA in Belgium will open its doors again in June 2018. The full African art collection at RMCA is available to browse online.
The Fowler’s collections comprise more than 120,000 art and ethnographic objects representing ancient, traditional, and contemporary cultures of Africa, Native and Latin America, Asia, and the Pacific. The majority of works at the Museum were donated. The Sir Henry Wellcome Collection of 30,000 objects, given to the Museum in 1965, forms the core of the museum’s African and Pacific collection. Collector Jay T. Last, donated a significant collection of 92 wood and ivory Lega objects from the Democratic Republic of Congo. The museum also boasts one of the world’s greatest collection of Yoruba art. The Lega works donated can be seen online.
Barbier-Mueller Museum opened its doors in May 1977, three months after the passing of the renowned collector, Josef Mueller. To celebrate the 40th birthday of the Musée Barbier-Mueller, La Biennale Paris is welcoming a selection of 130 works from this Swiss family’s personal collections. Learn about the Mueller collection history here and see the full collection of African art at the museum here.
Sir Robert Sainsbury started collecting art around 1929. His first major purchase was a bronze head from artist Sir Jacob Epstein. Sir Robert talked about his passion for collecting being like an artistic instinct, with a ‘gut feeling’ guiding his choices.The collection now contains over 1,400 items spanning 5,000 years. If the museum’s Instagram feed is not enough, you can search through the museum’s collection of African art online.
Only recently opening in 2015, the Museu de Cultures del Mon (Museum of World Cultures) houses over 700 works from Asia, Africa and Oceania. View African art highlights from the museum’s collection here.
Another museum with a vast and long history, the Museum of Five Continents was officially founded in 1868. The first collectors of objects from outside Europe were the members of the Wittelsbach dynasty. Today the museum is the second largest in Germany, with a collection of 200,000 objects. Unfortunately the museum does not have an online database of its African collection but you can marvel at the masterpieces that grace the museum’s exhibit floor on Instagram.
The National Museum of African Art‘s mission is to inspire conversations about the beauty, power, and diversity of African arts and cultures worldwide. The first museum dedicated to African art in the United States, the National Museum of African Art was founded in 1964 by a Foreign Service office who bought African art objects in Germany. In 2005, the museum received the Walt Disney-Tishman Collection of 525 works spanning most major African art styles and 75 cultures. Today, the National Museum of African Art possesses over 50,000 pieces of African art.
…And of course there’s yours truly. With our regular trips to Europe and North America, we try to visit as many museums as possible to share what we see with you all. Next trip, Japan. We hear there’s a museum of African art there too! At 1,099 followers, who’ll knock us over to 1,100?
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