OBJECTS OF BELIEF FROM THE VATICAN San Francisco—The rarely seen holdings of the Vatican Ethnological Missionary Museum include some 80,000 objects that represent the artistic achievements of the indigenous cultures of Asia, Oceania, Africa, and the Americas. About forty masterpieces from it are presently being featured in a special exhibition at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, where they can be seen until September 8, 2013. While a few tribal art pieces were included in the 1982 The Vatican Collections: Papacy and Art, this is the first time that a U.S. exhibition has focused exclusively on the Vatican’s collection of ethnographic art. Each of the artworks in Objects of Belief from the Vatican: Art of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas was created to function as a “materialization of spirituality.” Together they celebrate multiple paths to spirituality, and the installation traces their significance without the imposition of a single dominant cultural storyline. Featuring works from Africa, the Pacific, and the pre-contact and immediate post-contact Americas, the objects span more than four centuries. Highlights include two masks and three shrine carvings obtained in 1691 by Fray Francisco Romero in Colombia’s Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta; three figurative sculptures representing the gods Tu, Tupo, and Eketea sent by the first missionary in Mangareva to Pope Gregory XVI in 1837; a fifteenth-century stone sculpture created in Mexico of the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl; and an array of rare sculptures from Papua New Guinea. This small but fascinating exhibition will be the subject of a full article in our next issue. NEW CURATOR San Francisco—After a protracted search, Dr. Matthew H. Robb is now serving as the first dedicated curator for ancient American and Native American art at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. He comes to FAMSF from the AOA department at the St. Louis Art Museum. His particular specialty is the art of Teotihuacán, of which the de Young Museum (one component of FAMSF) has a notable collection. YALE ART GALLERY REOPENING New Haven, CT—The Yale University Art Gallery is the oldest and one of the most important university art museums in America. It was founded in 1832 when artist John Trumbull donated more than 100 paintings to Yale College and designed a gallery to house them. Since then, the gallery’s collection has grown to number more than 200,000 objects from around the world, ranging in date from ancient times to the present day. They are used not only to educate Yale students in all subject areas, but also to inspire and increase understanding of great works of art among the wider public, from schoolchildren to adults. LEFT: The god Tu. Gambier Islands, Mangareva Island. Late 18th century. Wood. Photo © Vatican Museums, 100189. LOWER LEFT: Crucifix. Kongo, Congo Angola, Kongo peoples. Late 17th century. Brass. Photo © Vatican Museums, 101057. RIGHT : Reliquary Guardian Figure, Kota, Gabon. Photo © Vatican Museums, 10. RIGHT: The god Eketea. Gambier Islands, Mangareva Island. Late 18th century. Wood. Photo © Vatican Museums, 100183. LEFT: Figure of Quetzalcoatl. Aztec. Mexico. Brass. Photo © Vatican Museums.
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