Research for the reinstallation project, which was sponsored by the Texas Fund for Curatorial Research and overseen by Roslyn Adele Walker, Ph.D., Senior Curator of the Arts of Africa, the Americas, and the Pacific and The Margaret McDermott Curator of African Art, began in 2011 and included visits to national and international museums.
The reconfigured gallery will enable the Museum to display a larger number of works from the collection, including well-known works such as Olowe of Ise’s Kneeling Female Figure with Bowl, alongside recent acquisitions and works that have previously never been on view, including a State Sword by the Asante people of Ghana; a large-scale Yoruba arugba Shango, a caryatid figure holding a container for Shango ritual objects, from Nigeria; and a pair of Fulani six-inch hammered gold earrings.
The DMA was an early advocate for the inclusion of African art in American art museums, and the Museum’s dedication to the field has set precedents since the 1950s. The collection is particularly strong in art from the Kongo and Luba cultures in Central Africa and the Yoruba and Edo (Benin kingdom) in West Africa.
