The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

borough A borough is an administrative division in various English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely. History In the Middle ...

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Kings County is the most populous Administrative divisions of New York (state)#County, county in the State of New York, ...

. At , the museum is

's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown Heights, Flatbush, and Park Slope neighborhoods of Brooklyn, the museum's Beaux-Arts building was designed by McKim, Mead and White. The Brooklyn Museum was founded in 1898 as a division of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences and was planned to be the largest art museum in the world. The museum initially struggled to maintain its building and collection, only to be revitalized in the late 20th century, thanks to major renovations. Significant areas of the collection include antiquities, specifically their collection of Egyptian antiquities spanning over 3,000 years. European, African, Oceanic, and Japanese art make for notable antiquities collections as well. American art is heavily represented, starting at the

Colonial Colonial or The Colonial may refer to: * Colonial, of, relating to, or characteristic of a colony or colony (biology) Architecture * American colonial architecture * French Colonial * Spanish Colonial architecture Automobiles * Colonial (1920 a ...

period. Artists represented in the collection include Mark Rothko,

Edward Hopper Edward Hopper (July 22, 1882 – May 15, 1967) was an American realism, American realist painter and printmaker. While he is widely known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolor painting, watercolorist and printmaker in e ...

, Norman Rockwell,

Winslow Homer Winslow Homer (February 24, 1836 – September 29, 1910) was an American landscape painter and illustrator, best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters in 19th-century America and a preeminent figure ...

, Edgar Degas, Georgia O'Keeffe, and

Max Weber Maximilian Karl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German Sociology, sociologist, historian, jurist and political economy, political economist, who is regarded as among the most important theorists of the development of Modernity, ...

. The museum features the Steinberg Family Sculpture Garden, which features salvaged architectural elements from throughout New York City.

History

The roots of the Brooklyn Museum extend back to the 1823 founding by Augustus Graham of the Brooklyn Apprentices' Library in Brooklyn Heights. The Library moved into the Brooklyn Lyceum building on Washington Street in 1841. Two years later the institutions merged to form the Brooklyn Institute, which offered exhibitions of painting and sculpture and lectures on diverse subjects. In 1890, under its director Franklin Hooper, Institute leaders reorganized as the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences and began planning the Brooklyn Museum. The museum remained a subdivision of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, along with the

Brooklyn Academy of Music The Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) is a performing arts venue in Brooklyn, New York City, known as a center for progressive and avant-garde performance. It presented its first performance in 1861 and began operations in its present location in ...

, the

Brooklyn Botanic Garden Brooklyn Botanic Garden (BBG) is a botanical garden in the borough of Brooklyn, New York City. It was founded in 1910 using land from Mount Prospect Park in central Brooklyn, adjacent to Prospect Park and the Brooklyn Museum. The garden hold ...

, and the Brooklyn Children's Museum until the 1970s when all became independent. Opened in 1897, the Brooklyn Museum building is a steel frame structure clad in masonry, designed in the neoclassical style by the

architectural Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings ...

firm of McKim, Mead, and White and built by the Carlin Construction Company. The original design for the Brooklyn Museum proposed a structure four times as large as what was built from 1893 through 1927, when construction ended. After Brooklyn became part of greater New York City in 1898, support for the project diminished.

Daniel Chester French Daniel Chester French (April 20, 1850 – October 7, 1931) was an American sculptor of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, best known for his 1874 sculpture '' The Minute Man'' in Concord, Massachusetts, and his 1920 monu ...

, the sculptor of the statue of Abraham Lincoln in the

Lincoln Memorial The Lincoln Memorial is a U.S. national memorial built to honor the 16th president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. It is on the western end of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., across from the Washington Monument, and is in ...

, was the principal designer of the pediment sculptures and the monolithic figures along the cornice. The figures were created by 11 sculptors and carved by the

Piccirilli Brothers The Piccirilli brothers were an Italian family of renowned marble carving, carvers and sculptors who carved many of the most significant marble sculptures in the United States, including Daniel Chester French’s colossal ''Abraham Lincoln (1920 s ...

. French also designed the two allegorical figures ''Brooklyn'' and ''Manhattan'' currently flanking the museum's entrance, created in 1916 for the Brooklyn approach to the Manhattan Bridge and relocated to the museum in 1963. By 1920, the New York City Subway reached the museum with a subway station; this greatly improved access to the once-isolated museum from

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the List of co ...

and other outer boroughs. The Brooklyn Institute's director Franklin Hooper was the museum's first director, succeeded by William Henry Fox who served from 1914 to 1934. He was followed by Philip Newell Youtz (1934–1938), Laurance Page Roberts (1939–1946), Isabel Spaulding Roberts (1943–1946), Charles Nagel, Jr. (1946–1955), and Edgar Craig Schenck (1955–1959). Thomas S. Buechner became the museum's director in 1960, making him one of the youngest directors in the country. Buechner oversaw a major transformation in the way the museum displayed art and brought some one thousand works that had languished in the museum's store rooms and put them on display. Buechner played a pivotal role in rescuing the Daniel Chester French sculptures from destruction due to an expansion project at the

Manhattan Bridge The Manhattan Bridge is a suspension bridge that crosses the East River in New York City, connecting Lower Manhattan at Canal Street with Downtown Brooklyn at the Flatbush Avenue Extension. The main span is long, with the suspension cables ...

in the 1960s. During that period, Donelson Hoopes was hired as Curator of Paintings and Sculptures from 1965 to 1969. Duncan F. Cameron held the post from 1971 to 1973, with Michael Botwinick succeeding him (1974–1982) and Linda S. Ferber acting director for part of 1983 until Robert T. Buck became director in 1983 and served until 1996. From 1992 to 1995, Stephanie Stebich served as assistant director. The Brooklyn Museum changed its name to Brooklyn Museum of Art in 1997, shortly before the start of Arnold L. Lehman's term as director. On March 12, 2004, the museum announced that it would revert to its previous name. In April 2004, the museum opened the

James Polshek James Stewart Polshek (February 11, 1930September 9, 2022) was an American architect based in New York City. He was the founder of Polshek Partnership, the firm at which he was the principal design partner for more than four decades. He worked ...

-designed entrance pavilion on the Eastern Parkway facade. In September 2014, Lehman announced that he was planning to retire around June 2015. In May 2015,

Creative Time Creative Time is a New York-based nonprofit arts organization. It was founded in 1974 to support the creation of innovative, site-specific, socially engaged artworks in the public realm, particularly in vacant spaces of historical and architectura ...

president and artistic director Anne Pasternak was named the museum's next director; she assumed the position on September 1, 2015.

Funding

The Brooklyn Museum, along with numerous other New York institutions, including the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 100 ...

, the American Museum of Natural History, and the

, is part of the Cultural Institutions Group (CIG). Member institutions occupy land or buildings owned by the City of New York and derive part of their yearly funding from the city. The Brooklyn Museum also supplements its earned income with funding from Federal and State governments, as well as with donations by individuals and organizations. In 1999, the museum hosted the Charles Saatchi exhibition '' Sensation'', resulting in a court battle over New York City's municipal funding of institutions exhibiting controversial art, eventually decided in favor of the museum on First Amendment grounds. In 2005, the museum was among 406 New York City arts and social service institutions to receive part of a $20 million grant from the Carnegie Corporation, in turn funded by New York City mayor

Michael Bloomberg Michael Rubens Bloomberg (born February 14, 1942) is an American businessman, politician, philanthropist, and author. He is the majority owner, co-founder and CEO of Bloomberg L.P. He was Mayor of New York City from 2002 to 2013, and was a c ...

. Major benefactors include Frank Lusk Babbott. The museum is the site of the annual Brooklyn Artists Ball which has included celebrity hosts such as Sarah Jessica Parker and Liv Tyler. Amidst the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified ...

and its negative impact on museum revenue, the museum raised funds for an endowment to pay for collections care by selling or

deaccessioning Deaccessioning is the process by which a work of art or other object is permanently removed from a museum's collection to sell it or otherwise dispose of it.Report from the AAMD Task Force on Deaccessioning. 2010. ''AAMD Policy on Deaccessioning' ...

works of art. The endowment will allow the museum to direct annual fundraising revenues dedicated to conservation and collection care to other purposes. The October 2020 sale consisted of 12 works by artists including Lucas Cranach the Elder,

Gustave Courbet Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet ( , , ; 10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and t ...

, and

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot ( , , ; July 16, 1796 – February 22, 1875), or simply Camille Corot, is a French landscape and portrait painter as well as a printmaker in etching. He is a pivotal figure in landscape painting and his va ...

. Other sales throughout October 2020 included Modernist artists. Though usually prohibited by the Association of Art Museum Directors, the association allowed such sales to proceed for a two-year window through 2022 in response to the effects of the pandemic.

Art and exhibitions

The Brooklyn Museum exhibits collections that seek to embody the artistic heritage of world cultures. The museum is well known for its expansive collections of Egyptian and African art, in addition to 17th-, 18th-, 19th-, and 20th-century paintings, sculpture, and decorative arts throughout a wide range of schools. In 2002, the museum received the work '' The Dinner Party'', by feminist artist

Judy Chicago Judy Chicago (born Judith Sylvia Cohen; July 20, 1939) is an American feminist artist, art educator, and writer known for her large collaborative art installation pieces about birth and creation images, which examine the role of women in history ...

, as a gift from The Elizabeth A. Sackler Foundation. Its permanent exhibition began in 2007, as a centerpiece for the museum's Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. In 2004, the Brooklyn Museum featured ''Manifest Destiny'', an oil-on-wood mural by Alexis Rockman that was commissioned by the museum as a centerpiece for the second-floor Mezzanine Gallery and marked the opening of the museum's renovated Grand Lobby and plaza. Other exhibitions have showcased the works of various contemporary artists including Patrick Kelly, Chuck Close, Denis Peterson, Ron Mueck,

Takashi Murakami is a Japanese contemporary artist. He works in fine arts media (such as painting and sculpture) as well as commercial (such as fashion, merchandise, and animation) and is known for blurring the line between high and low arts as well as co ae ...

Mat Benote Mat Benote is a contemporary American artist associated with the graffiti urban art movement. He is most commonly known for placing fine art in museums and public spaces. His work has been displayed in many museums including the Guggenheim in New Y ...

Kiki Smith Kiki Smith (born January 18, 1954) is a West German-born American artist whose work has addressed the themes of sex, birth and regeneration. Her figurative work of the late 1980s and early 1990s confronted subjects such as AIDS and gender, whi ...

Jim Dine Jim Dine (born June 16, 1935 in Cincinnati, Ohio) is an American artist whose œuvre extends over sixty years. Dine’s work includes painting, drawing, printmaking (in many forms including lithographs, etchings, gravure, intaglio, woodcuts, ...

, Robert Rauschenberg,

Ching Ho Cheng Ching Ho Cheng (December 26, 1946 – May 25, 1989) was a contemporary artist who lived and painted in New York City during the 1970s and 1980s. His work consists of four distinct periods: Psychedelics, Gouache, Torn Works and the Alchemical Serie ...

, Sylvia Sleigh and William Wegman, and a 2004 survey show of work by Brooklyn artists, ''Open House: Working in Brooklyn''. In 2008, curator Edna Russman announced that she believes 10 out of 30 works of Coptic art held in the museum's collection—second-largest in North America are fake. The artworks were exhibited starting in 2009. Costumes from ''

The Crown The Crown is the state in all its aspects within the jurisprudence of the Commonwealth realms and their subdivisions (such as the Crown Dependencies, overseas territories, provinces, or states). Legally ill-defined, the term has differen ...

'' and '' The Queen's Gambit'' television series were put on display as part of its virtual exhibition ''"The Queen and the Crown"'' in November 2020.

Collections

Egyptian, Classical, and Ancient Near Eastern Art

The Brooklyn Museum has been building a collection of

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Med ...

ian artifacts since the beginning of the twentieth century, incorporating both collections purchased from others, such as that of American

Egyptologist Egyptology (from ''Egypt'' and Greek , '' -logia''; ar, علم المصريات) is the study of ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, architecture and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religious ...

Charles Edwin Wilbour Charles Edwin Wilbour (March 17, 1833 – December 17, 1896) was an American journalist and Egyptologist. Wilbour is noted as one of the discoverers of the Elephantine Papyri and the creator of the first English translation of ''Les Misérables' ...

, whose heirs also donated his library to become the museum's Wilbour Library of Egyptology, and objects obtained during museum-sponsored archeological excavations. The Egyptian collection includes objects ranging from statuary, such as the well-known "Bird Lady"

terra cotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terracot ...

figure, to

papyrus Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, '' Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'') can also refer to a ...

documents (among others the Brooklyn Papyrus). The Egyptian, Classical, and Ancient Near Eastern collections are housed in a series of galleries in the museum. Egyptian artifacts can be found in the long-term exhibit, ''Egypt Reborn: Art for Eternity'', as well as in the Martha A. and Robert S. Rubin Galleries. Near Eastern artifacts are located in the Hagop Kevorkian Gallery.

Selections from the Egyptian collection

File:PredynasticFemaleFigurine BrooklynMuseum.png, The "Bird Lady" sculpture, Predynastic female figurine File:Book_of_the_Dead_of_the_Goldworker_of_Amun,_Sobekmose,_Mummy_Chamber,_31.1777e.jpg, Book of the Dead of the Goldworker of Amun, Sobekmose, 31.1777e File:Roll,_664_-_332_B.C.E._Brooklyn_Papyrus_47.218.48a-f.jpg, Brooklyn Papyrus 664–332 BCE File:Brooklyn Museum - Lady Tjepu - overall.jpg, Lady Tjepu, New Kingdom Dynasty 18, Reign of Amunhotep III c. 1390–1352 BCE, from tomb no. 181 at Thebes, 65.197 File:Pair statue of Nebsen and Nebet-Ta.jpg, Pair statue of husband and wife Nebsen and Nebet-Ta. New Kingdom, Dynasty XVIII, reign of Thutmose IV or Amenhotep III, c. 1400–1352 BCE

American art

The museum's collection of American art dates its first bequest of Francis Guy's ''Winter Scene in Brooklyn'' in 1846. In 1855, the museum officially designated a collection of American Art, with the first work commissioned for the collection being a landscape painting by Asher B. Durand. Items in the American Art collection include portraits, pastels, sculptures, and prints; all items in the collection date to between c. 1720 and c. 1945. Represented in the American art collection are works by artists such as

William Edmondson William Edmondson (c. 1874–1951) was the first African-American folk art sculptor to be given a one-person show exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City (1937). Biography Edmondson was born sometime in December 1874 on the ...

(''Angel'', date unknown), John Singer Sargent's ''

Paul César Helleu Paul César Helleu (17 December 1859 – 23 March 1927) was a French oil painter, pastel artist, drypoint etcher, and designer, best known for his numerous portraits of beautiful society women of the ''Belle Époque''. He also conceived the ce ...

sketching his wife Alice Guérin'' (ca. 1889); Georgia O'Keeffe's ''Dark Tree Trunks'' (ca. 1946), and

's '' Eight Bells'' (ca. 1887). Among the most famous works in the collection are Gilbert Stuart's portrait of George Washington and

Edward Hicks Edward Hicks (April 4, 1780 – August 23, 1849) was an American folk painter and distinguished religious minister of the Society of Friends (aka "Quakers"). He became a Quaker icon because of his paintings. Biography Early life Edwar ...

's ''The Peaceable Kingdom''. The museum also holds a collection by Emil Fuchs. Works from the American art collection can be found in various areas of the museum, including in the Steinberg Family Sculpture Garden and in the exhibit, ''American Identities: A New Look'', which is contained within the museum's ''Visible Storage ▪ Study Center''. In total, there are approximately 2,000 American Art objects held in storage.

Selections from the American collection

File:Brooklyn Museum - George Washington - Charles Willson Peale - overall.jpg,

Charles Willson Peale Charles Willson Peale (April 15, 1741 – February 22, 1827) was an American painter, soldier, scientist, inventor, politician and naturalist. He is best remembered for his portrait paintings of leading figures of the American Revolution, and ...

, ''George Washington'', c. 1776 File:Brooklyn Museum - Portrait of John Adams - Samuel Finley Breese Morse - overall.jpg,

Samuel Morse Samuel Finley Breese Morse (April 27, 1791 – April 2, 1872) was an American inventor and painter. After having established his reputation as a portrait painter, in his middle age Morse contributed to the invention of a single-wire telegraph ...

, ''Portrait of John Adams'', 1816 File:Brooklyn Museum - The Peaceable Kingdom - Edward Hicks - overall.jpg,

, ''The Peaceable Kingdom'', c. 1830–1840 File:Brooklyn Museum - Wild Turkey - John J. Audubon.jpg,

John J. Audubon John James Audubon (born Jean-Jacques Rabin; April 26, 1785 – January 27, 1851) was an American self-trained artist, naturalist, and ornithologist. His combined interests in art and ornithology turned into a plan to make a complete pictoria ...

, ''Wild Turkey'', lithograph, c. 1861 image:Brooklyn Museum - A Ride for Liberty -- The Fugitive Slaves - Eastman Johnson - overall.jpg, Eastman Johnson, ''A Ride for Liberty – The Fugitive Slaves'', c. 1862 File:Brooklyn Museum - Evening Glow The Old Red Cow - Albert Pinkham Ryder - overall.jpg, Albert Pinkham Ryder, ''Evening Glow The Old Red Cow'', 1870–1875 File:Brooklyn Museum - The Waste of Waters is Their Field - Albert Pinkham Ryder - overall.jpg, Albert Pinkham Ryder, ''The Waste of Waters is Their Field'', 1880 File:Brooklyn Museum - The Northeaster - Winslow Homer - overall.jpg,

, ''The Northeaster'', c. 1883 File:Brooklyn Museum - Moonlight - Ralph Albert Blakelock - overall.jpg,

Ralph Albert Blakelock Ralph Albert Blakelock (October 15, 1847 – August 9, 1919) was a romanticist American painter known primarily for his landscape paintings related to the Tonalism movement. Biography Ralph Blakelock was born in New York City on October 15, ...

, ''Moonlight'', 1885 File:Brooklyn Museum - Sunrise - George Inness - overall - 2.jpg, George Inness, ''Sunrise'', 1887 File:Thomas Eakins - Letitia Wilson Jordan - Google Art Project.jpg, Thomas Eakins, ''Letitia Wilson Jordan'', 1888 File:Brooklyn Museum - An Out-of-Doors Study - John Singer Sargent - overall.jpg, John Singer Sargent, ''

Sketching with His Wife'', 1889 File:Brooklyn Museum - La Toilette - Mary Cassatt.jpg, Mary Cassatt, ''La Toilette'', c. 1889–1894 File:Brooklyn Museum - Late Afternoon, New York, Winter - Frederick Childe Hassam - overall.jpg, Childe Hassam, ''Late Afternoon, New York, Winter'', c. 1900 File:William Rush carving his Allegorical Figure of the Schuylkill river.png, Thomas Eakins, ''William Rush Carving his Allegorical Figure of the Schuylkill River'', 1908 File:William Glackens - Nude with Apple - Google Art Project.jpg, William Glackens, ''Nude with Apple'', 1909–1910 A Morning Snow-Hudson River at the Brooklyn Museum (80534)a.jpg, George Bellows, ''A Morning Snow – Hudson River'', 1910 File:Night, from Pennsylvania Station, by Weinman, at Brooklyn Museum, NY.jpg, Adolph Weinman, ''Night'', c. 1910 File:Brooklyn Museum - The Arch - Henry Ossawa Tanner - overall.jpg,

Henry Ossawa Tanner Henry Ossawa Tanner (June 21, 1859 – May 25, 1937) was an American artist and the first African-American painter to gain international acclaim. Tanner moved to Paris, France, in 1891 to study at the Académie Julian and gained acclaim in Fren ...

, ''The Arch'', c. 1914 File:Brooklyn Museum - Blue 1 - Georgia O'Keeffe.jpg, Georgia O'Keeffe, ''Blue 1'', 1916 File:Brooklyn Museum - Landscape New Mexico - Marsden Hartley.jpg, Marsden Hartley, ''Landscape, New Mexico'', 1916–1920

Asian art

In 2019, the museum reopened its Japanese and Chinese exhibits, after reinstalling its Korean section in 2017. The Chinese section offers pieces from more than 5,000 years of Chinese art and will show contemporary pieces on a regular schedule. The Japanese gallery, with its 7,000 pieces, is the largest of the museum's Asian collection and is known for its works from the

Ainu people The Ainu are the indigenous people of the lands surrounding the Sea of Okhotsk, including Hokkaido Island, Northeast Honshu Island, Sakhalin Island, the Kuril Islands, the Kamchatka Peninsula and Khabarovsk Krai, before the arrival of the ...

. The museum is also home to works from Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan and southeast Asia.

Arts of Africa

The oldest acquisitions in the African art collection were collected by the museum in 1900, shortly after the museum's founding. The collection was expanded in 1922 with items originating largely in what is now the

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...

. In 1923 the museum hosted one of the first exhibitions of African art in the United States. With more than 5,000 items in its collection, the Brooklyn Museum boasts one of the largest collections of African art in any American art museum. Although the title of the collection suggests that it includes art from all of the African continent, works from Africa are sub-categorized among a number of collections. Sub-Saharan art from West and Central Africa are collected under the banner of African Art, while North African and Egyptian art works are grouped with the Islamic and Egyptian art collections, respectively. The African art collection covers 2,500 years of human history and includes sculpture, jewellery, masks, and religious artifacts from more than 100 African cultures. Noteworthy items in this collection include a carved ''ndop'' figure of a Kuba king, believed to be among the oldest extant ''ndop'' carvings, and a Lulua mother-and-child figure. In 2018, the museum drew criticism from groups including Decolonize This Place for its hiring of a white woman as Consulting Curator of African Arts.

Selections from the African collection

File:WLA brooklynmuseum Bushoong Kuba Ndop Portrait of K.jpg, Kuba Ndop Portrait. File:Brooklyn-Museum 81.168.1 Equestrian-Figure Gold-Weight cropped.png, Golden rider of the Ashanti region culture in Ghana.

Arts of the Pacific Islands

The museum's collection of Pacific Islands art began in 1900 with the acquisition of 100 wooden figures and

shadow puppets ''Shadow Puppets'' is a science fiction novel by American author Orson Scott Card, published in 2002. It is the sequel to ''Shadow of the Hegemon'' and the third book in the Ender's Shadow series (often called the Bean Quartet). It was originall ...

from

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the wide Torr ...

and the Dutch East Indies (now

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

); since that base, the collection has grown to encompass close to 5,000 works. Art in this collection is sourced to numerous Pacific and Indian Ocean islands including

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only ...

and New Zealand, as well as less-populous islands such as Rapa Nui and

Vanuatu Vanuatu ( or ; ), officially the Republic of Vanuatu (french: link=no, République de Vanuatu; bi, Ripablik blong Vanuatu), is an island country located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is east of no ...

. Many of the Marquesan items in the collection were acquired by the museum from famed Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl. Art objects in this collection are crafted from a wide variety of materials. The museum lists "coconut fiber, feathers, shells, clay, bone, human hair, wood, moss, and spider webs" as among the materials used to make artworks that include masks, tapa cloths, sculpture, and jewellery.

Arts of the Islamic world

The museum also has art objects and historical texts produced by Muslim artists or about Muslim figures and cultures.

Selections from the Islamic world collection

File:Brooklyn Museum - Bahram Gur and Courtiers Entertained by Barbad the Musician Page from a manuscript of the Shahnama of Firdawsi (d. 1020).jpg, '' Bahram Gur and Courtiers Entertained by Barbad the Musician'', Page from Shahnama of Ferdowsi. File:Umurrud Shah Takes Refuge in the Mountains, ca. 1570..jpg, ''Zumurrud Shah Takes Refuge in the Mountains,'' ca. 1570. File:Mihr 'Ali (Iranian, active ca. 1800-1830). Portrait of Fath 'Ali Shah Qajar, 1815.jpg, Mihr 'Ali (Iranian, active ca. 1800–1830). ''Portrait of Fath-Ali Shah Qajar'', 1815. File:Brooklyn Museum - Prince Yahya.jpg, Muhammad Hasan (Persian, active 1808–1840). ''Prince Yahya'', ca. 1830s. File:Bowl with Kufic Inscription, 10th century.jpg, Bowl with

Kufic Kufic script () is a style of Arabic script that gained prominence early on as a preferred script for Quran transcription and architectural decoration, and it has since become a reference and an archetype for a number of other Arabic scripts. It ...

Inscription, 10th century.

The Jarvis Collection of Native American Plains Art

The Museum has a collection of Native America Artifacts acquired by Dr. Nathan Sturges Jarvis (surgeon) who was stationed at Fort Snelling, Minnesota 1833–36.The Jarvis Collection of Native American Plains Art, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn New Yor

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Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art

The museum's center for

feminist art Feminist art is a category of art associated with the late 1960s and 1970s feminist movement. Feminist art highlights the societal and political differences women experience within their lives. The hopeful gain from this form of art is to bri ...

opened in 2007; it is dedicated to preserving the history of the movement since the late 20th century, as well as raising awareness of feminist contributions to art, and informing the future of this area of artistic dialogue. Along with an exhibition space and library, the center features a gallery housing a masterwork by

, a large installation called '' The Dinner Party'' (1974-1979).

European art

The Brooklyn Museum has among others late Gothic and Early

Italian Renaissance The Italian Renaissance ( it, Rinascimento ) was a period in Italian history covering the 15th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Europe and marked the tra ...

paintings by Lorenzo di Niccolo ("Scenes from the life of Saint Lawrence"), Sano di Pietro, Nardo di Cione, Lorenzo Monaco, Donato de' Bardi ("Saint Jerome"),

Giovanni Bellini Giovanni Bellini (; c. 1430 – 26 November 1516) was an Italian Renaissance painter, probably the best known of the Bellini family of Venetian painters. He was raised in the household of Jacopo Bellini, formerly thought to have been his fath ...

. It has Dutch paintings by

Frans Hals Frans Hals the Elder (, , ; – 26 August 1666) was a Dutch Golden Age painter, chiefly of individual and group portraits and of genre works, who lived and worked in Haarlem. Hals played an important role in the evolution of 17th-century gro ...

, Gerard Dou, and Thomas de Keyser as well as others. It has 19th-century French paintings by

Charles Daubigny Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English and French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*karilaz'' (in Latin alphabet), whose meaning was " ...

, Narcisse Virgilio Díaz, Eugène Boudin ("Port, Le Havre"), Berthe Morisot, Edgar Degas, Gustave Caillebotte ("Railway Bridge at Argenteuil"),

Claude Monet Oscar-Claude Monet (, , ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During ...

("Doges Palace, Venice"), the French sculptor

Alfred Barye Alfred Barye "Le Fils" or Alf Barye (Paris, France, 21 January 1839 – Paris, France, 1882) was a French sculptor, of the Belle Époque, pupil of his father the artist Antoine-Louis Barye. In cooperation with Émile-Coriolan Guillemin, Barye d ...

, Camille Pissarro, and Paul Cézanne as well as many others.

Selections from the European collection

File:Brooklyn Museum - Saint Lawrence Buried in Saint Stephen's Tomb - Lorenzo di Niccolò.jpg, Lorenzo di Niccolò, ''Saint Lawrence Buried in Saint Stephen's Tomb'', 1410–1414, tempera and tooled gold on poplar, 33 × 36 cm file:Brooklyn Museum - Madonna and Child with Saints James Major and John the Evangelist altarpiece - Sano di Pietro.jpg, Sano di Pietro, ''Triptych of Madonna with Child, St. James and St. John the Evangelist'', ca. 1460 and 1462 File:Brooklyn Museum - Desdemona Cursed by her Father (Desdemona maudite par son père) - Eugène Delacroix.jpg,

Eugène Delacroix Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix ( , ; 26 April 1798 – 13 August 1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school.Noon, Patrick, et al., ''Crossing the Channel: British ...

, ''Desdemona Cursed by her Father (Desdemona maudite par son père)'', c. 1850-1854 File:Brooklyn Museum - The Two Colleagues (Lawyers) (Les deux confrères Avocats) - Honoré Daumier.jpg, Honoré Daumier, ''The Two Colleagues'' (Lawyers) (''Les deux confrères Avocats''), between 1865 and 1870 File:Brooklyn Museum - The Edge of the Pool (Au Bord de l'Etang) - Gustave Courbet.jpg,

, ''The Edge of the Pool'', 1867 File:Edgar Degas - Portrait de Mlle Eugénie Fiocre.jpg, Edgar Degas, ''Portrait de Mlle Eugénie Fiocre'', 1867-1868 File:Brooklyn Museum - Flood at Moret (Inondation à Moret) - Alfred Sisley - overall.jpg, Alfred Sisley, ''Flood at Moret (Inondation à Moret)'', 1879 File:Brooklyn Museum - Apple Tree in Bloom (Pommier en fleurs) - Gustave Caillebotte.jpg, Gustave Caillebotte, ''Apple Tree in Bloom (Pommier en fleurs)'', c. 1885 File:Brooklyn Museum - Fin du travail (The End of the Working Day) - Jules Breton.jpg,

Jules Breton Jules Adolphe Aimé Louis Breton (1 May 1827 – 5 July 1906) was a 19th-century French naturalist painter. His paintings are heavily influenced by the French countryside and his absorption of traditional methods of painting helped make Jules ...

, ''Fin du travail (The End of the Working Day)'', c.1886-1887 File:Brooklyn Museum - Cypresses (Les Cyprès) - Vincent van Gogh.jpg,

Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inc ...

, ''Cypresses (Les Cyprès),'' 1889, Reed pen, graphite, quill, brown ink and black ink on white wove latune et cie balcons paper, File:Brooklyn Museum - At the Moulin Rouge (Au Moulin Rouge) - Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.jpg,

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Comte Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa (24 November 1864 – 9 September 1901) was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman, caricaturist and illustrator whose immersion in the colourful and theatrical life of Paris in the l ...

, ''At the Moulin Rouge (Au Moulin Rouge)'', c. 1892. File:Brooklyn Museum - Church at Vernon - Claude Monet - overall.jpg,

, ''The Church at Vernon'', 1894 File:Brooklyn Museum - Houses of Parliament Sunlight Effect (Le Parlement effet de soleil) - Claude Monet.jpg,

, ''Houses of Parliament Sunlight Effect (Le Parlement effet de soleil)'', 1903 File:Claude Monet - The Doges Palace (Le Palais ducal) - Google Art Project.jpg,

, ''The Doge's Palace (Le Palais ducal)'', 1908 File:Pierre-Auguste Renoir - Les Vignes à Cagnes.jpg,

Pierre-Auguste Renoir Pierre-Auguste Renoir (; 25 February 1841 – 3 December 1919) was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that " ...

, ''Les Vignes à Cagnes'', 1908. File:Landscape in Provence (Paysage de Provence) - André Derain.jpg, André Derain, ''Landscape in Provence (Paysage de Provence)'' (c. 1908)

Libraries and archives

The Brooklyn Museum Libraries and Archives hold approximately 300,000 volumes and over of archives. The collection began in 1823 and is housed in facilities that underwent renovations in 1965, 1984 and 2014.

Programs

In 2000, the Brooklyn Museum started the Museum Apprentice Program in which the museum hires teenage high schoolers to give tours in the museum's galleries during the summer, assist with the museum's weekend family programs throughout the year, participate in talks with museum

curator A curator (from la, cura, meaning "to take care") is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the parti ...

s, serve as a teen advisory board to the museum, and help plan teen events. The first Saturday of each month, the Brooklyn Museum stays open until 11pm. General admission is waived from 5 to 11pm, although some ticketed exhibitions may require an entrance fee. Regular first Saturday activities include educational family-oriented activities such as collection-based art workshops, gallery tours, lectures, live performances dance parties. The museum has posted many pieces to a digital collection online which features a user-based tagging system that allows the public to tag and curate sets of objects online, as well as solicit additional scholarship contributions. The Museum Education Fellowship Program is a ten-month position in which Fellows acquire theoretical and practical skills to lead K-12 school group visits with a focus on various topics from the collection. School Youth and Family Fellows teach Gallery Studio Programs and School Partnerships while Adult and Public Programs Fellows curate and organize Thursday night as well as First Saturday Programming. The museum has also received attention for its recent ASK App in which visitors can interface with staff and educators regarding works in the collection through a mobile application downloadable through the Apple and Google application stores.

"Populism"

Brooklyn Museum - The Disciples Having Left Their Hiding Place Watch from Afar in Agony - James Tissot

Attendance at the Brooklyn Museum has been in decline in recent years, from a high "decades ago" of nearly one million visitors per year to more recent figures of 585,000 (1998) and 326,000 (2009). ''The New York Times'' attributed this drop partially to the policies instituted by then-current director Arnold Lehman, who has chosen to focus the museum's energy on "populism", with exhibits on topics such as " Star Wars movies and hip-hop music" rather than on more classical art topics. Lehman had also brought more controversial exhibits, such as a 1999

show Show or The Show may refer to: Competition, event, or artistic production * Agricultural show, associated with agriculture and animal husbandry * Animal show, a judged event in the hobby of animal fancy ** Cat show ** Dog show ** Horse show ** Sp ...

that included Chris Ofili's infamous dung-decorated '' The Holy Virgin Mary'', to the museum. According to the ''Times'':

The quality of their exhibitions has lessened", said Robert Storr, the dean of the Yale University School of Art and a Brooklynite. "''Star Wars'' shows the worst kind of populism. I don't think they really understand where they are. The middle of the art world is now in Brooklyn; it's an increasingly sophisticated audience and always was one.

On the other hand, Lehman points out that the demographics of museum attendees are showing a new level of diversity. According to ''The New York Times'', "the average age f museum attendees in a 2008 surveywas 35, a large portion of the visitors (40 percent) came from Brooklyn, and more than 40 percent identified themselves as people of color." Lehman asserts that the museum's interest is in being welcoming and attractive to all potential museum attendees, rather than simply amassing large numbers of them.

Works and publications

* We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965-1985 * – Published on the occasion of an exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, April 21-September 17, 2017

References

External links

*
Brooklyn Museum records, 1823-1963
from the Smithsonian Archives of American Art.
Brooklyn Museum Building Online Exhibition
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