Arts of the Americas

The Brooklyn Museum possesses an unusually rich collection of Arts of the Americas that encompasses the Western Hemisphere and stretches from 3000 B.C.E. to the present. For over a century, the Museum has played an important role in not just acquiring such works but also presenting and interpreting them. The Museum has taken the lead in redefining ethnographic and archaeological objects as artworks through special exhibitions, innovative displays, and educational programs.

Highlights

Explore the Arts of the Americas collection

Purview

At the Brooklyn Museum, Arts of the Americas refers to artworks by artists indigenous to what is now North and South America. The collection includes artwork from ancient times through the 21st century.

Works by 20th- and 21st-century artists with Indigenous heritage are in the Contemporary Art, Photography, and Feminist Art collections. Some artworks by Indigenous artists working in Spanish colonies can be found in the Decorative Arts and Design collection.

History

The Museum’s first objects by artists indigenous to the Americas were purchased by Stewart Culin, who was hired as Curator of Ethnology in 1903. He began making expeditions to Indigenous centers around North America soon thereafter. Culin acquired especially large numbers of objects from the Northwest Coast and the Southwest; his notes survive today. He began installing his finds in dedicated galleries in 1905.

In 1925, The Rainbow House opened to present artwork from the Indigenous Americas, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific Islands. This long-term exhibition cemented the Museum’s commitment to collecting and exhibiting non-Western art. The title of the curatorial department changed several times, but artworks from these regions remained largely grouped together for the rest of the 20th century. Arts of the Americas became its own department in 2001.

The Museum began collecting objects created by artists indigenous to Central and South America in 1929, under the direction of Herbert Spinden, a curator and specialist in Mayan art. Today, the collection of ancient Peruvian textiles is one of the four most significant outside Peru.

In 1937, the New-York Historical Society sent thousands of ancient and non-Western objects to the Brooklyn Museum. Included in the group from the Americas was a unique collection of Northern Plains objects amassed by U.S. Army doctor Nathan Sturges Jarvis while he was stationed at Fort Snelling, Minnesota, from 1833 to 1836.

Today, curators of Arts of the Americas are dedicated to the respectful care and presentation of Indigenous artworks in the Museum’s possession. They are also committed to fostering relationships with living leaders and artists from the cultures represented here.