Department of African Art Records

The Department of African Art Records, dated 1999 to 2018, consist of correspondence, reinstallation plans, exhibit planning for Through the Eyes of Picasso (2017-2018), departmental reports, and other miscellaneous materials. When David Binkley, longtime curator of the Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas(AOA), left the museum in 1999, it spurred the decision to split AOA into the Department of African Art and the Department of Native American Art. This collection contains materials which pertain to the Department of African Arts during this period of turnover and afterwards – specifically with the various renewals of African Art spaces including one in 2000/2001, one correalating with the addition of the Bloch Building between 2001 and 2007, and one between 2013 and 2015, undertaken with the assistance of contracted Curator of African Art Nii Quarcoopome. The correspondence in the collection covers various African art collector inquiries, curatorial projects and travels, as well as some department-related programs and events at the museum -- some of which details visits from Dr. Kaywin Feldman (Director of the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art) and curator Nii Quarcoopome to the museum in 2001.