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historical notes
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Warren M. Robbins, who founded the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African Art, was born in 1923 in Worcester, Massachusetts. Robbins was a cultural attaché for the State Department when he stumbled upon his first piece of African art, a carved-wood figure of a Yoruba man and woman that he purchased for $15 from an antique shop in Hamburg, Germany. Robbins went on to build a collection of more than 5,000 pieces of African art, including masks, textiles, and other figures, which he displayed in his Capitol Hill home in Washington, D.C.
The collection grew, and Robbins raised money to purchase additional townhouses to display the art, eventually amassing nine townhouses, 16 garages, and two carriage houses. Robbins began lobbying Congress to have the Smithsonian take over the collection in the mid-1970s, and, in 1979, the institution accepted the collection. Today, the collection includes over 9,100 objects representing nearly every area of the African continent and more than 32,000 volumes on African art, history, and culture. Robbins's mission was to bring African art to the public, promote civil rights, and clarify the influence of African art on Western art. |
