Collecting the “Other Americas”: Ancient Americas Collections in American Art Museums

Cover for Collecting the Other Americas catalog

Collecting the “Other Americas”: Ancient Americas Collections in American Art Museums

Edited by Ellen Hoobler and Victoria Isabel Lyall, with contributions by Susan E. Bergh, Kristopher Driggers, Rex Koontz, Mary E. Miller, Joanne Pillsbury, Elizabeth Irene Pope, Matthew H. Robb, and Nancy B. Rosoff

2025
Digital and Print, 9 × 11 in. (softcover), Read the Online Publication
204 pages
144 illustrations
ISBN: 978-1-945483-17-2 (print)

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 art of "the Americas" or "the ancient Americas." Stewards of these collections in American art museums have begun confronting the changing meanings and import of what Nelson Rockefeller once described as the "other Americas." This symposium volume captures the history of collecting and display of ancient American works in art museums, a history surprisingly poorly documented until now.