Exhibiting the Negro: Art and Anthropology in the National Museum, 1929–33

Abstract

This article considers a specific context in which the 1933 Exhibition of Works by Negro Artists operated. The Smithsonian National Gallery of Art was located in the National Museum’s new building of Natural History, featuring its science collections of anthropology and animal specimens. Both its science and art exhibitions presented museum visitors with a narrative that contrasted “superior” white Western civilization to “primitive” peoples of color. By examining two earlier temporary art shows in 1929 and 1930, along with the concurrent display of the Herbert Ward Collection in the museum’s Africa Hall, we can see how competing ideas about race, culture, and national identity played out.