Databases
- ARTstor This link opens in a new window ARTstor is a database of images from museums, artists, libraries, colleges and universities, scholars, private collections, and photo archives available for teaching, education, and scholarship, with all images cleared for educational use.
- Berg Fashion Library This link opens in a new window The Berg Fashion Library includes the Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion, an e-book collection, and an image database. This database covers all regions of the world with content from pre-history to the present.
- Grove Art Online This link opens in a new window Grove Art Online is an encyclopedia covering both Western and non-Western art and all aspects of visual culture. Articles include bibliographies and searchable images. As part of Oxford Art Online, keywords also are simultaneously searched in The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms, Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, and The Oxford Companion to Western Art.
- AskART Academic This link opens in a new window AskART Academic is a database of information about artists, including names, birth and death dates, state or local affiliation, fields in which artist worked, book and periodical references to artist, dealers and museums where works may be viewed, auction prices of works, and some biographical details.
Collections
Museums in the United States with African Collections, Smithsonian Library
Metropolitan Museum of Art Africa Collection
Africa Center (NYC), 40 open access Museum of African Art publications
National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian
Contemporary African Art Collection (private)
Fowler Museum, University of California, Los Angeles
Museum of Black Civilizations, Dakar, Senegal
Ethnographic
American Museum of Natural History, NYC, Hall of African Peoples
Musee du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac - African Collections
Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University
Royal Museum for Central Africa Collections
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology, African Section
Exhibitions--selected
Africa: the Art of a Continent: 100 Works of Power and Beauty, 1996. “exhibition held Oct. 4, 1995-Jan. 21, 1996 at the Royal Academy of Arts, London; Mar. 1-May 1, 1996 at Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin; June 7-Sept. 29, 1996 at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.” Catalog: Mugar Folio N7380.5 .A342 1996.
Africa Remix: Contemporary Art of a Continent. Print: Africa Remix: Contemporary Art of a Continent, ed. Simon Njami. Catalog: Mugar Library N7380.5 .A369 2005.
African Art Exhibition of 1923. Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY. Online catalog.
Art and Oracle: A Scholarly Resource of African Art and Rituals of Divination. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. Created in conjunction with the exhibition “Art and Oracle” (on view at the Museum from April 25 to July 30, 2000). Art Institute of Chicago:. Catalog: Mugar Library N7391.65 L35 2000.
African Negro Art. James Johnson Sweeney. Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935. Mugar Library N 7380 F35a. "One of the first exhibitions in the United States to display African sculptures as works of art, rather than as ethnographic objects;" quoted from: Perfect Documents: Walker Evans and African Art, 1935, Metropolitan Museum of Art, February 1 - September 3, 2000. Virginia-Lee Webb. Catalog: Mugar Library TR658.3 .W43 2000.
Art of Central Africa: Masterpieces from the Berlin Museum fur Volkerkunde. Hans-Joachim Koloss. Catalog: Mugar Library N7391.65 .K65 1990.
Arts of Africa: 7000 Years of African Art.Ezio Bassani. Exhibit held at the Grimaldi Forum, Monaco, July 16-September 4, 2005. Catalog: Mugar Library N7380.5 .A78 2005.
In/sight: African Photographers, 1940 to the Present. “exhibition held May 24-Sept. 29, 1996 at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.” Catalog: Mugar Folio TR646.A35 I57 1996.
Imagery & Symbols
Imagery and Iconography. In Grove Art Online. Articles with bibliographies. 1. Symbolism and ritual.2. Gesture.3. Portraiture.4. Physical anomalies.5. Mother-and-child imagery.6. Animal imagery.7. Equestrian imagery.8. Tricksters.
African Images: Essays in African Iconology. Daniel F. McCall, ed., 1975. (Boston University papers on Africa, v. 6). Mugar Library DT11 .F642 v.6.
Tracing memory : a glossary of graphic signs and symbols in African art and culture. Clementine M. Faik-Nzuji.. Mugar Library GN645 .F28513 1996.
Images of Power: Understanding Bushman Rock Art. David Lewis-Williams. 1st ed, 1989. Mugar Library DT 1058 .K56 L48 1989.
Language of Adinkra Patterns. Alfred Kofi Quarcoo. 2nd ed. Mugar Library DT507 .Q37 1994.
Secrecy: African Art that Conceals and Reveals [Sub-Saharan]. Mary H. Nooter. Exhibition catalog organized and presented by the Museum for African Art, New York.) Mugar Folio N7391.65 .S43 1993.
Symbols of Africa. Heike Owusu. 300 symbols of sub-Saharan African peoples and tribes. Mugar Library GN645 .O8813 2000.
Photographs
Anthology of African and Indian Ocean Photography. 1st English ed. Pascal Martin Saint Leon. Mugar Folio TR115 .A5413 1999.
Contemporary African Photographs. Annotated list. Africa South of the Sahara, Stanford University.
Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives. National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institiution.
G.I. Jones Photographic Archive of Southeastern Nigerian Art and Culture. Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.Photographs taken in the 1930’s.
Historical Photographs. Annotated list. Africa South of the Sahara, Stanford University.
In/sight: African Photographers, 1940 to the Present. “Exhibition held May 24-Sept. 29, 1996 at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.” Catalog: Mugar Folio TR646 .A35 I57 1996.
Voyages en Afrique. Gallica. France, Bibliotheque Nationale.
Librarian
6th floor,
Mugar Memorial Library
Mon-Fri 9am - 5 pm
rdwyer@bu.edu