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Ibeji with beaded gown.Nigeria.Yoruba peoples
Wood, cloth, glass beads, thread, camwood powder
Fowler Museum at UCLA.
About this Guide
Note: Many of the databases and/or article links referenced in this guide require CaneID authentication through the the UM Library system unless denoted by the "open access" symbol.
online access
*peer-reviewed
open access
online access*peer-reviewed
open accessCollections Online
Brooklyn Art Museum (BAM), Brooklyn, NY
BAM was one of the first museums in the United States to collect and exhibit the Arts of Africa.
Digital Benin
Digital Benin brings together all objects, historical photographs and rich documentation material from collections worldwide to provide a long-requested overview of the royal artefacts from Benin Kingdom looted in the late nineteenth century.
Field Museum Chicago / Africa Collections
The Museum’s collection of material culture from the continent of Africa includes over 173,000 objects. The African collections are comprised of nearly 30,000 ethnographic and approximately 143,500 archaeological objects.
Fowler Museum at UCLA
Superb representation of the arts of many African nations, including objects from Senegal, Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire), Kenya, Zambia, and South Africa. The Yoruba collection contains a spectacular array of beaded objects, including a majestic throne, elaborate chiefly gowns, and sophisticated divination regalia.
High Art Museum, Atlanta, GA Lowe Art Museum, Coral Gables, FL Metropolitan Museum of Art, (MMA) NY Museum of Fine Arts, (MFA) Boston, MA Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) Houston, TX Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) Salem, MA Seattle Art Museum (SAM), Seattle, WA Yemisi Shyllon Museum of Art Lagos
High’s African art collection includes a diversity of art forms from ancient through contemporary times that represent the depth and breadth of the African diaspora.
Menil Collection Arts of Africa, Houston, TX
The Met's collection of art of the peoples of sub-Saharan Africa, the Pacific Islands, and North, Central, and South America comprises more than eleven thousand works of art of varied materials and types, representing diverse cultural traditions from as early as 3000 B.C.E. to the present.
From bronze altarpieces to palace pillars to historic men’s masks, the growing MFA collection of African and Pacific art includes masterpieces from the 16th to 20th centuries.
Collections: Search “African American”
Explore a selection of works by African American artists included in the collection of the National Gallery of Art.
Newark Museum of Art, Newark, NJ
The Newark Art Museum ranks among the nation's earliest and most comprehensive collections representing the breadth, diversity and vitality of artistic creativity throughout the continent of Africa. Its holdings comprise nearly 4,000 objects of ritual, ceremonial and daily use, as well as popular urban and fine arts.
Pitt Rivers Museum
Search object, photograph collections and listings of manuscript collections.
Collections: Search “African American” and/or African
Smithsonian National Museum of African Art Washington, DC
Virginia Museum of Fine Art (VMFA)
Considered one of the most comprehensive African Art colletions in the United States.
UM Libraries Land Grant Acknowledgement
The University of Miami acknowledges the ancestral and traditional territories of the Seminole Tribe of Florida, the Council of the Original Miccosukee Simanolee Nation Aboriginal Peoples and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida who are the original owners and custodians of the land upon which we stand and learn.
Ashe (from Yoruba àṣẹ) The vital force, energy, mystical power and potential which is present in all life in different amounts and varying manifestations.
Ibeji with beaded gown.Nigeria.Yoruba peoples
Wood, cloth, glass beads, thread, camwood powder
Fowler Museum at UCLA.
See also African American Art Guide
Research Portals & Archives
Africa (Smart History)
Beginner's guide to historical overviews, peoples and cultures, aesthetics, religion and rituals, and more.
Amistad Research Center
Tulane University, New Orleans, LA
Collecting, preserving, and providing open access to original materials that reference the social and cultural importance of America's ethnic and racial history, the African Diaspora, human relations, and civil rights.
The Black Archives Miami, FL
History and Research Foundation of South Florida, Inc. Collecting and Preserving the history and culture of black people in Miami Dade County from 1896 to the present.
Black Past, Seattle, WA
BlackPast is the single largest free and unrestricted resource on African American and African history on the Internet today dedicated to providing a global audience with reliable and accurate information on the history of African America and of people of African ancestry around the world.
The Fowler Museum UCLA
The Fowler Museum at UCLA explores global arts and cultures with an emphasis on Africa, Asia, the Pacific, and the Indigenous Americas—past and present.
New York Public Library (NYPL) Africana & Black History
The Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture, NY
The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, a research division of New York Public Library, is one of the world’s leading cultural institutions devoted to the research, preservation, and exhibition of materials focused on African American, African Diaspora, and African experiences.
E-Books & Reference Online
Arnoldi, et al. African Material Culture. Indiana University Press, 1996.
Delafosse, Maurice. Die Kunst Afrikas. Parkstone International, 2012.
Grabski, et al. African Art, Interviews, Narratives: Bodies of Knowledge at Work. Indiana University Press, 2013.
Salami, et al. A Companion to Modern African Art. Wiley Blackwell, 2013.
Shakarov, et al. Traditional African Art: an Illustrated Study. McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2015.
Delafosse, Maurice. Die Kunst Afrikas. Parkstone International, 2012.
Grabski, et al. African Art, Interviews, Narratives: Bodies of Knowledge at Work. Indiana University Press, 2013.
Salami, et al. A Companion to Modern African Art. Wiley Blackwell, 2013.
Shakarov, et al. Traditional African Art: an Illustrated Study. McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2015.
Article Indexes & Databases
Journals & Serials
Journal of African American Studies *
International Review of African American Art *
NKA Journal of Contemporary African Art (Duke University)
African Studies Quarterly University of Florida
African Arts (JSTOR) *
Callaloo *
UM Libraries Land Acknowledgement
The University of Miami acknowledges the ancestral and traditional territories of the Seminole Tribe of Florida, the Council of the Original Miccosukee Simanolee Nation Aboriginal Peoples and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida who are the original owners and custodians of the land upon which we stand and learn.
Contact Information
Architecture Research Center
1223 Dickinson Drive
University of Miami
Coral Gables, FL 33146
Phone: 305.284.5282
E-mail: um.arc@miami.edu
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