African and Oceanic Art from the Barbier-Mueller Museum, Geneva: A Legacy of Collecting

Forehead Ornament (Kapkap)
Western Solomon Islands, 19th century
Tridacna shell, turtle shell, fiber; Diam: 4 3/4 in. (12 cm)
Provenance: H. Gibson, England, before 1893; Royal United Services Institute Museum, London, 1893; James Hooper, England, before 1979; [Christie's, London 1980], Barbier-Mueller collection, sin

ce 1980

African and Oceanic Art from the Barbier-Mueller Museum, Geneva: A Legacy of Collecting
June 2, 2009–September 27, 2009
Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas—The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, 1st floor

	View images from this exhibition.

The collections of African and Oceanic art in the Barbier-Mueller Museum in Geneva, begun in the 1920s by Josef Mueller and continued by Jean Paul Barbier-Mueller, represent the culmination of more than eight decades of wide-ranging collecting of works from both regions. Presenting more than thirty highlights from the Barbier-Mueller’s holdings of African and Oceanic sculpture, most never before displayed in the United States, this exhibition explores a rich legacy of connoisseurship. The African works in the exhibition—sculpture and masks from western, eastern, and central Africa, from miniature to monumental in scale, made of wood, ivory, metal, and terracotta—illustrate both the creativity of the continent’s artists and the discerning eye of the collectors. The Oceanic works, an array of rare and spectacular objects that exemplify the breadth of achievement by artists from across the Pacific, include a striking group of figures, masks, and decorative art from Polynesia, New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Indonesia, and other areas.
Accompanied by a catalogue. 

The exhibition is made possible by Vacheron Constantin.
It was organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in collaboration with the Barbier-Mueller Museum, Geneva.