National Museum of African Art - Collections

Collections

When the National Museum of African Art was first transferred to the Smithsonian the collection consisted of approximately eight thousand objects. Today, the museum holds approximately 9,000 objects. The museum's collection is the largest publicly held collection of African art in the United States. The museum is given approximately sixty-seven gifts per year. When the museum was located at the Frederick Douglass townhome, it exhibited nineteenth-century paintings created by black artists, objects once owned by Frederick Douglass, and some loaned African art pieces. The current collection consists of musical instruments, sculpture, jewelry, regalia, textiles, early maps, educational materials, a library, and films, slides and photographs. The Warren M. Robbins Library houses more than 32,000 volumes about African art and culture. In 1996, the Washington Post stated that "there is no more important research facility in America for the study of African art."

The Walt-Disney Tishman collection consists of 500 photographs, textiles, pottery, sculptures, jewelry and paintings from throughout Africa. The collection was acquired in 2005. Photographer Eliot Eliosfon donated approximately 300,000 photographs and 12,000 feet of film footage on Africa. The collection includes photographs by Walker Evans.