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Birmingham Museum

The Birmingham Museum of Art Announces Long-Term Loan

found at Artdaily, June 27,2005

BIRMINGHAM.- The Birmingham Museum of Art is pleased to announce that the Bareiss family of Greenwich, Connecticut is placing its stunning collection of African art on long-term loan at the Museum. The collection of more than three hundred objects is comprised primarily of work from central, eastern, and southern Africa dating from the eighteenth to early twentieth centuries. To celebrate the loan, the museum has organized an exhibition titled Highlights from The Walter and Molly Bareiss Collection of African Art featuring 35 works from the collection, which will be installed in the Jemison Gallery from June 19th to July 31st. 2005

Among the powerfully expressive objects in the exhibition are marionettes (nearly seven feet tall), ancestor figures, initiation masks, divination objects, thrones, and staffs. The objects come from many countries, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, Angola, Malawi, and Tanzania.

American businessman and art collector Walter Bareiss, now in his 80s, first became interested in African art in 1948. René d'Harnoncourt's then the director of Museum of Modern Art in New York, asked Bareiss to attend an auction in Stuttgart to purchase African Art on behalf of the museum. Already a collector of modern art, Bareiss was aware of African art as a source for developments in European modernism, and was determined to learn more. He studied African art for the next twenty years, coming to appreciate it in its own right and championing its place among the greatest artistic traditions of the world. He and his wife Molly began collecting African art in the 1970s, and continued collecting for 20 years. Their collection has been exhibited in both Europe and the United States. In later years, Bareiss served as interim director for the Museum of Modern Art.

Emily G. Hanna, Ph.D., Birmingham Museum of Art Curator of Arts of Africa and the Americas, believes that stewardship of this outstanding and unique collection of African art is a privilege. “Because of the Bareiss family's focus on collecting from the central, eastern, and southern regions of Africa, our visitors will have the pleasure of viewing objects of power and beauty rarely exhibited in U.S. and even European museums,” says Hanna. "We are particularly excited about working with the Bareiss family and their stated goal of creating a broader understanding and appreciation of the arts of Africa. It is important to all of us to see this material within its specific context, but to also appreciate the individual objects as extraordinary works of art."

The BMA will develop thematic traveling exhibitions from the Bareiss collection, and the Education department plans teacher training programs, a website educational component, and special programming and publications developed jointly with the Curatorial department to maximize public interaction and understanding of this outstanding collection of art work.

“On rare occasions, museums are given the opportunity to act as caretakers of a collection from the private sector which benefits our varied audiences,” says Gail Trechsel, R. Hugh Daniel Director of the Birmingham Museum of Art. Trechsel believes that this loan not only extends the museum's ability to interpret the art and culture of Africa but also provides visitors the experience of seeing works of art of extraordinary quality and visual impact. “As an institution, we want to revive the pleasure, the discovery that comes from the fundamental act of looking,” she explains. “Thoughtful ‘looking’ brings us closer to understanding the beauty and importance of these works of art, which is sometimes a challenge for western eyes.” 

read also Bareiss and the pdf press release at BMA

Out of Africa

Museum receives rare African exhibit

By LEIGH ANNE MONITOR BIRMINGHAM POST-HERALD

Kings and queens were lavished with them.

Sick people turned their hope to them.

People used them for religious devotion, too.

These are the objects of Africa. Many of these objects/art works are coming to Birmingham for a long time.

The Birmingham Museum of Art received an African art collection from the Bareiss family of Greenwich, Conn., on long-term loan.

The collection includes more than 300 objects, mainly from central, eastern and southern Africa from the 18th to the early 20th centuries.

Viewers can learn of the genius of African creativity from seeing the objects, museum officials said.

"The oddity is that eastern Africa, with regards to scholarship, has been considered uninteresting with regards to art because it was thought that there wasn't any," said Allen F. Roberts, director of the James S. Coleman African Studies Center at the University of California — Los Angeles. "(Walter Bareiss) put together material that no one in the study of African art had ever seen before. It was just a great revelation to learn that there is this material and it had been there for a long time.

"It hadn't been noticed," Roberts said.

Art officials consider it to be a rare collection.

"The fact that the family focused on collecting art from central, east and south Africa is unusual," said Emily Hanna, the museum's curator of arts of Africa and the Americas.

Some of the objects are difficult to find in U.S. and European museum collections, Hanna said.

"Because our permanent collection focuses mainly on west African art, this collection perfectly complements our own, and allows us to tell a more complete story about Africa.

"There is no other collection like it in the Southeast," Hanna said.

Visitors can see works of art of extraordinary quality and visual impact, said Gail Trechsel, the R. Hugh Daniel director of the museum.

To celebrate the loan, the museum has organized an exhibition of 35 works, "Highlights from the Walter and Molly Bareiss Collection of African Art." The collection opens Sunday.

Several pieces feature carvings such as faces in wood, a dominant material in African art.

The collection comes with a surprise — it was offered from a private collector to museum officials to care for it, Trechsel said.

The Bareiss family contacted the museum, a connection made with the help of David Moos, former curator of contemporary art at the museum.

Moos is a friend of an advisor who works with the Bareiss family and introduced the family to the museum. Hugh Bareiss, one of the sons, visited Birmingham and was impressed with the museum and the city, Hanna said.

"It was important to them to find a museum that valued African art, and also had a full-time curator whose specialty was African art," Hanna said.

Walter and Molly Bareiss are in fragile health. Walter Bareiss, in his 80s, first became interested in African art in 1948. Rene D'Arnoncourt, then director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, asked Bareiss to attend an auction to purchase African art on behalf of the museum. Bareiss went on to study African art for the next 20 years. He and his wife began collecting in the 1970s and continued until the 1990s. The collection has been exhibited in the United States and Europe.

In later years, Walter Bareiss served as interim director of the Museum of Modern Art.

Trechsel has called the collection's works "sometimes a challenge for Western eyes," but a challenge that with introspection brings viewers closer to understanding the works.

With such consideration, "they will probably see the connections between African and American communities rather than differences," Hanna said.

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Author: Jean-Baptiste Bacquart

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