- Description
- <150> masks.
- <400> statues.
- <50> pottery pieces.
- <60> musical instruments.
- <400> goldweights.
- <300> utilitarian objects.
- <200> adornment items.
- <100> ivories.
- Summary
- Traditional masks, bronze adornment items, statuary, instruments, utilitarian objects and weaponry form the core of the Division's holdings of African Art and Artifacts. These objects document aesthetic and ethnographic dimensions of traditional African societies and African cultures in South America. There are strong holdings of masks, statuary, instruments and utilitarian objects in the Blondiau-Theater-arts, Lord Oxmantown and Elizabeth Davis collections. African weaponry and bronze adornment items are contained in the Eric de Kolb Collection of African Arms and Arnold and Joanne Syprop collection respectively. The objects contained in the Melville and Frances Herskovits Collection provide extensive ethnographic documentation from Surinam, South America and several West African regions and are supported by field notes and photographic archives. The Franklin Williams and Jean Kenyon McKenzie Collections survey a wide range of figurative and geometric goldweights from Ghana, Abbia gambling chips from the Cameroon and coptic crosses from Ethiopia. There is a small collection of beadwork, mostly adornment items, from the Masai of Kenya and the Zulu and Xhosa of South Africa. A large collection of contemporary African art work documents non-secular art generally made for the commercial market. This group includes decorative wood and ivory carvings, leather goods, cloth, and brass figurines.
- Donor/Sponsor
- Schomburg NEH Automated Access to Special Collections Project.
- Subject
- Access (note)
- Access to the collection is by appointment only and is restricted to qualified and experienced researchers.
- Cite As (note)
- From the collection of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library, Astor Lenox & Tilden Foundation, Arts & Artifacts Division.
- Terms of Use (note)
- Works from the collection may be borrowed for exhibition purposes. Photography of art or artifacts in the collection is prohibited. In most instances, prints of collection items are available for sale to researchers. Permission for loans and to reproduce prints for publication must be obtained in writing.
- Call Number
- Sc Art (African art & artifacts collection)
- OCLC
- NYPG085000078-F
- Title
[African art & artifacts collection] [realia].
- Imprint
<1885-1990.>
- Access
Access to the collection is by appointment only and is restricted to qualified and experienced researchers.
- Cite As:
From the collection of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library, Astor Lenox & Tilden Foundation, Arts & Artifacts Division.
- Terms Of Use
Works from the collection may be borrowed for exhibition purposes. Photography of art or artifacts in the collection is prohibited. In most instances, prints of collection items are available for sale to researchers. Permission for loans and to reproduce prints for publication must be obtained in writing.
- Local Note
Individual collections are described separately.
- Research Call Number
Sc Art (African art & artifacts collection)