85 outstanding icon from that tradition. Objects in Rockefeller’s collection were inextricably tied to the places of their origins. An important role of the MPA was at once to generate outreach and inspire pride abroad among countries of origin. Rockefeller’s first love was Precolumbian art. Beginning in the 1930s, he traveled extensively to Mexico and Latin America and dedicated his energies to fostering the economic development of the region. Under President Franklin Roosevelt he was appointed to a newly created position of Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (1940) and later served as Assistant Secretary of State for American Republic Affairs (1944). Rockefeller first traveled with his family to Africa in 1956. He also led the US Delegation at Nigerian Independence on September 30, 1960, as President Eisenhower’s representative. A highlight of that visit was time spent with archaeologist and curator Bernard Fagg at the National Museum in Lagos. Directly upon his return, the MPA considered organizing a Nigeria exhibition “to contribute to Nigerian-American understanding and friendship.” Ultimately it was decided that sixteen new African states represented in the collection would be celebrated through a presentation of 100 works: Traditional Art of the African Nations. At its launch on May 16, 1961, the UN representatives from those states were invited to meet the press along with Governor Rockefeller and Ambassador Adlai Stevenson (fig. 5). The transition from colonialism to independence was also celebrated through the loan of major African works from the collection to important exhibitions held in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia, in 1962 and Dakar, Senegal, in 1966 (fig. 6). L’Art Nègre, launched in Dakar and subsequently shown in Paris in conjunction with the first World Festival of Negro Arts, was presided over by President Léopold Sédar Senghor and featured some twenty-three MPA works. Rockefeller’s son, Michael, shared his passion for non- Western art and served as a member of the MPA board. Upon his graduation from Harvard University in 1960, Michael participated in an expedition of its Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology to record a documentary film in Papua New Guinea, staying on to research and to collect the art of the Asmat peoples (fig. 8). During a subsequent visit to the region, his life was tragically cut short when he disappeared during a boating accident. The more than 600 works he gathered were first presented in the 1962 MPA exhibition The Art of the Asmat, New Guinea: Collected by Michael C. Rockefeller and are today enshrined in the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing as his legacy (see fig. 14). FIG. 6: Poster for L’art nègre. Sources, Evolution, Expansion, Dakar, April 1966; Paris, June-August 1966. 40 x 60 cm. Inv. PPO184660. Musée du Quai Branly/Scala/ Art Resource, NY. FIG. 7: Couple. Sakalava peoples, Menabe region, Madagascar. 17th–late 18th century. Wood, pigment. H: 99.1 cm. Purchase, Lila Acheson Wallace, Daniel and Marian Malcolm, and James J. Ross Gifts, 2001. 2001.408. FIG. 8: Sago platter, possibly by the artist Bewar. Asmat peoples, Otsjanep village, Ewta River region, Papua Province (Irian Jaya), Indonesia. Mid-20th century. Wood, bamboo. L: 68.6 cm. The Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection; Gift of Nelson A. Rockefeller and Mrs. Mary C. Rockefeller, 1965. 1978.412.1207.
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