30 September 2005
Smithsonian Acquires World-Famous African Art Collection
National Museum of African Art receives 525-piece gift from Disney Company
Washington --The Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art has received one of the world’s most famous collections of traditional African art -- the Walt Disney-Tishman Collection. The museum announced the gift September 29 at a press briefing in Washington.
The 525-piece collection -- a gift from the Walt Disney World Company, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Company -- includes most major styles of African art, representing 75 peoples and 20 countries.
The Walt Disney Company previously had made the collection accessible to the public through loans, publications and special exhibitions. The company now has made final the collection’s permanent relocation to the Smithsonian, according to a museum press release.
"The Walt Disney Company is honored to be able to work with the Smithsonian Institution to bring this phenomenal collection to the world," said Michael Eisner, chief executive officer of the Walt Disney Company, as quoted in the release. “Thanks to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art, the extraordinary artists of so many eras represented in this collection will now live for the ages through their magnificent works,” Eisner said.
“This is an incredibly generous gift from the Walt Disney World Company, and we couldn’t be more grateful,” said Lawrence M. Small, secretary of the Smithsonian, according to the release. Sharon Patton, director of the National Museum of African Art, referred to the addition as "truly a milestone in the history of our museum," the release said.
"The pieces represent the largest, most diverse collection of African art given to an art museum in the United States in nearly a quarter of a century," Patton commented at the press briefing. “Our mission to engage people to discover, experience, and celebrate the diversity of Africa’s rich art and culture, across time, is significantly advanced by this gift.”
The collection began in the early 1960s, when New York real estate developer Paul Tishman and his wife, Ruth, acquired their first African sculptures (an ivory figure and a bronze helmet mask) from the Benin kingdom in Nigeria. Intrigued by the honesty and power of the art and its influence on contemporary Western art, the Tishmans collected objects in a variety of styles, materials and types that represent a wide range of traditional African art.
Highlights of the collection include a hunting horn (Sierra Leone, Sherbro-Portuguese), a crest mask (Cameroon, Bamileke peoples), an armlet (Nigeria, Yoruba peoples), a helmet mask (Nigeria, Edo peoples), a twin figure with jacket (Nigeria, Yoruba peoples), a headdress (Nigeria, Calabar area), and a burial sculpture (Madagascar, Bara peoples).
Disney purchased the collection from the Tishmans in 1984 and named it "The Walt Disney-Tishman African Art Collection." The collection has been used as an inspiration for works such as the stage musical The Lion King, and some of its pieces have been displayed in exhibitions at museums and cultural institutions worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Louvre in Paris.
“The Walt Disney-Tishman African Art Collection contains works unsurpassed in rarity and uniqueness and unavailability in today’s marketplace,” said Patton.
The National Museum of African Art has maintained a long relationship with the collection, going back to 1980 and 1981, when it acquired six objects from Paul Tishman. “We’re thrilled to finally, after 20 years, find the right place for this great collection,” Eisner said at the briefing.
“More than ever, this enhances the role that the Smithsonian plays," said Small, speaking of the collection. "Essentially, the Smithsonian offers America -- Americans -- a picture of the world, and it offers the world a picture of America,” he continued. “This just expands, exponentially, the opportunities that we have to enhance the experiences of our visitors. We have visitors in the millions that come to the Smithsonian -- not only from all across the United States, but from all around the world every year.”
The museum expects to complete the collection by February 2007, when it will show all the pieces in a dedicated exhibition called “The Walt Disney-Tishman Collection.” In the meantime, some selected pieces from the collection will be displayed immediately.
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art is the only national museum in the United States solely dedicated to collecting, exhibiting, conserving and studying African art. Through numerous donations from African art collectors, the museum holds the largest public collection of contemporary African art in the United States -- with more than 8,500 African art objects, including the Walt Disney-Tishman Collection.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
