The term “Pre-Columbian art” once described the material culture produced in the Americas, mostly south of the US-Mexico border, prior to the arrival of Europeans. Museums across the United States now refer to these departments as “the Americas” or “the ancient Americas.” A few individuals and museums began collecting in this area already in the late nineteenth century, but many others did not embark on it until well into the twentieth. A range of figures brought these collections into being: a handful of dedicated curators, pioneering directors, and passionate collectors and patrons engaged dealers, archaeologists, scholars, and governments to amass artworks and present them to students and the public alike. During this time, many art museums insisted on displaying these materials not as ethnographic or anthropological objects but as finely crafted works of aesthetic value—as art. During the latter half of the twentieth century, more concern arose over acquisition methods and standards as well as the ethics of collecting objects of cultural heritage and import.

Stewards of these collections in American art museums have begun to confront the changing meanings and import of what Nelson Rockefeller once described as the “Other Americas.” This Mayer Center Symposium volume captures the history of collecting and display of ancient American works in art museums, a history surprisingly poorly documented until now, and their significance for communities today.

With additional contributions by:

Susan E. Bergh, former Curator of Pre-Columbian and Native North American Art, Cleveland Museum of Art

Kristopher Driggers, Associate Curator of Latin American Art, San Antonio Museum of Art

Rex Koontz, Moores Professor of Art History, University of Houston, and Consulting Curator of the Art of the Indigenous Americas, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Mary E. Miller, Director of the Getty Research Institute

Joanne Pillsbury, Andrall E. Pearson Curator of Ancient American Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Elizabeth Irene Pope, Senior Research Associate with the Arts of the Americas and Textiles departments at the Art Institute of Chicago

Matthew H. Robb, Mesoamerican specialist, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Nancy B. Rosoff, Andrew W. Mellon Curator and Chair of the Arts of the Americas, Brooklyn Museum