Joseph H. Howard - The Howard's Legacy

The Howard's Legacy

Following his death in 1994 Victoria Howard sought to keep the memory of her father alive by contracting with The Craft and Folk Art Museum to put on an exhibit of her father's instruments. The event was so successful that other museums, including the Smithsonian Latin Program created their own traveling exhibits using a selection of instruments from the Howard collection and the estate of Fernando Ortiz.

Ritmos de Identidad: Fernando Ortíz’s Legacy and the Howard Collection of Percussion Instruments features more than 80 rare musical instruments from the Dr. and Mrs. Joseph H. Howard Family Collection. Included are hand-painted sacred and secular drums, rattles and other percussion instruments from the Caribbean, South America and West Africa. The exhibit includes a variety of instruments made from "found objects", such as - a hoe blade and jaw bone, right alongside artifacts employing complex strung heads and tuning mechanisms. The collection is on loan from Victoria R. Howard.

As Victoria Howard describes her life with father, she points out the fact that he involved the whole family in the process. His son Brock was the chief transcriptionist, while she was the artist. Their collective job was to research and catalog their growing collection. Summers, weekends and after school, anytime that was not occupied with some other activity was used. All their summer vacations were dedicated to the process of collecting the instruments. As we see the collection today it shows.