African Art, New York, and the Avant Garde

This exhibition is made possible by the Friends of the Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas.

Exhibition Objects

Sculptural Element from a Reliquary Ensemble: Head
Date: 19th century (collected before 1914)
Ogooué—Congo
Alfred Stieglitz (American, Hoboken, New Jersey 1864–1946 New York)
Date: February 1916
Accession Number: 49.55.330(19)
Photograph Based on the "Picasso-Braque" Exhibition at 291 Gallery, New York
Alfred Stieglitz (American, Hoboken, New Jersey 1864–1946 New York)
Date: 1915
Accession Number: 49.55.36
Study for the Sculpture "The First Step"
Constantin Brancusi (French (born Romania), Hobita 1876–1957 Paris)
Date: ca. 1913
Accession Number: 49.70.25
The Café Terrace
Diego Rivera (Mexican, Guanajuato 1886–1957 Mexico City)
Date: 1915
Accession Number: 49.70.51
Camera Work, No. 48
Alfred Stieglitz (American, Hoboken, New Jersey 1864–1946 New York)
Date: October 1916
Accession Number: 53.701.49

View All Objects

African Art, New York, and the Avant-Garde

November 27, 2012–September 2, 2013

Accompanied by a publication

This exhibition highlights the specific African artifacts acquired by the New York avant-garde and its most influential patrons during the 1910s and 1920s. Reflecting on the dynamism of New York's art scene during the years that followed the 1913 Armory Show, the exhibition brings together African works from the collections of many key individuals of the period such as Alfred Stieglitz, Marius de Zayas, John Quinn, Louise and Walter Arensberg, Alain LeRoy Locke, and Eugene and Agnes Meyer.

Featuring the Metropolitan's own holdings as well as loans from public and private collections, the exhibition includes some forty wood sculptures from West and Central Africa presented alongside photographs, sculptures, and paintings by Alfred Stieglitz, Charles Sheeler, Pablo Picasso, Francis Picabia, Diego Rivera, and Constantin Brancusi. Together, these works of art from Africa and the Western avant-garde evoke the original context in which they were first experienced simultaneously almost a century ago.