Here are links to some of our favorite web sites...

Useful Information
  • African Art Museum and Gallery Links

African Art Museum - Online Collection collection of African tribal art featuring over 1,200 artifacts from 100 ethnic groups. Items on display include wooden and bronze statues, masks, religious, ritual and domestic objects, furniture and weapons. Learn about art, culture and history of each ethnic group. Start your museum tour by clicking on the tribe names.

British Museum: World Cultures. Go to Compass and enter African in your search. You will get thumbnails linking to quality images and excellent information about the piece.

Cycles: African Life Through Art - from Indianapolis Museum of Art. A highly visually appealing and thought provoking site which provides a rich user experience through interactivity, text and images. A "must see".

Detroit Institute of the Arts: African Art Exhibit - be introduced to the ancient kingdom, images of animals in art and more. Visit: Benin Kings Queen Mothers  Symbols of Royal Power  Figures of Power Men Who Dance As Women

Ritual Messengers  Canada Museum of Civilizations.  Interactive--  Try your knowledge with the Mystery Questions!  It is fun!

Africa: One Continent. Many Worlds. Click topics in left frame - from Natural History Museum - Los Angeles. Curriculum materials, lesson plans.

African Art: African Voices Philadelphia Museum of Art Online interactive exhibition surveys the artistic achievements of just a few of the many cultures of sub-Saharan Africa

Masks Online - Museum for African Art, New York - website brings African masks to life with exhibition information, activities for kids and curricula lessons for teachers. (site was down last I checked)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art  New York-- From the western Sudan south and east through central and southern Africa. View images in groups or one at a time. See Timeline - African Art

Art and Oracle - African Art and Rituals of Divination - exhibit from Metropolitan Museum of Art - presents African artifacts created to communicate with ancestors, spirits, and gods in order to obtain insight into human quandaries.

Genesis: Ideas of Origin in African Sculpture - exhibit from from Metropolitan Museum of Art - seeks to shed light on the act of human creation as a broad and recurrent theme of African art. Several images on line as wells as short videos. Catalogue available.

Art from Africa: Long Steps Never Broke a Back From Seattle Museum of Art. Site examines contemporary and traditional art.

Musee of Paris Magical faces of Africa (masks) - Paris Museum

North Carolina Museum of Art  African Art Collection

Afrika- Art and Culture Art and Culture Art and Culture Art and Culture Art and Culture Art and Culture Art and Culture  - Museum of Ethnology in Berlin. Browse using the pictorial menu at top. Masks - images of kinds - various African art objects - connections to Europe - magic and medicine.

Hamill Gallery - Alphabetical listing of images by culture 
(click on left frame to see what images are available). Lots of exhibits on line.

Africa Direct (This is a commercial site) Site is educational  - gives background information on each artifact - includes close-up detail photos....Great to compare and contrast cultural styles etc. Art teachers have permission to use images in PowerPoint© (non-commercial use only).

Yoruba Art and Culture - pdf file - excellent review for you and your students. From  Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology.  (Teaching Kit with artifacts and music available)

Search the collection. Look by object, use materials, theme.

African Vision: The Walt Disney-Tishman African Art Collection View Timeline (Follow the Art). See sections on masks, figurative work and images of power & prestige. You can zoom in on images and see multiple views of some objects.

African Voices Listen to Africans talk about their lives. 

Inscribing Meaning: Writing + Graphics in African Art - explores the relationships between African art and the communicative powers of language, graphic systems and the written word.

Online Exhibits of African Art  Current Exhibits

Where Gods and Mortals Meet: Continuity and Renewal in Urhobo Art - comprehensive presentation of the arts of the Urhobo peoples of Nigeria

Playful Performers - Why Wear a Mask? - National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C. - online exhibit to bring to young people an enhanced understanding of the many roles that masks play in various African societies and cultures. Must see!

Presence of Spirits National Museum of African Art

Kent cloth of the Asante --Wrapped in Pride

Ceramics exhibit--
a brief introduction to African ceramics

Royal art of Benin Click thumbnail images to learn more.


Art of the Personal Object


Images of Power and Identity

Western Sudan - region includes Mali, Burkina Faso,
 
Yoruba Click on the small thumbnail images

Baule Art Cote d'Ivoire -Smithsonian Exhibit  

Beaded Splendor Migration of Beading and Beadwork in Africa

Hats Off! Salute to African Headwear  Exhibit of hats from various African cultures

Textures: Words and Symbol in Contemporary African Art