In February of this year, the Princeton University Art Museum revealed a fresh new presentation of one of the museum’s most renowned collections, the art of the ancient Americas. Since the last holistic curation of Princeton’s ancient Americas galleries twenty-fi ve years ago, the collection has grown substantially, particularly under the museum’s fi rst curator for this area, Gillett G. Griffi n, who was profi led in Tribal Art in 2006. This was a much-needed renovation. During the course of the last quarter century, additional freestanding cases had been added to accommodate new works, while the existing wall cases also accepted additional objects, leading to a relatively small gallery space of about 1,700 square feet displaying more than eight hundred objects. While such a dense and rich display of art has been lauded by students and experts with deep knowledge of the art of the ancient Americas, other visitors found the galleries diffi cult to penetrate, especially since great works might be overlooked amidst the dense array, and virtually no space remained for accompanying prose descriptions and explanations. The sheer quantity of objects on display also limited the museum’s potential to provide descriptive labels and prohibited object-specifi c lighting, so visitors had little means of learning about the art, and the objects of greatest aesthetic or academic import could not be effectively highlighted. 90 Art of the Ancient Americas at Princeton By Bryan R. Just FIG. 1: Human fi gure with tattooed whale fl uke tails on cheeks. Okvik, St. Lawrence Island, Bering Strait, Alaska. AD 100–400. Walrus ivory. H: 15.1 cm. The Princeton University Art Museum, the Lloyd E. Cotsen (class of 1950) Eskimo Bone and Ivory Carving Collection, inv. 1997-106. Photo: Bruce M. White. Princeton’s engagement with the indigenous art of the Americas began in the mid-nineteenth century, when occasional donations of artifacts were made to the university. Beginning in the 1870s, additional objects were donated to the Theological Seminary by Reverend Sheldon Jackson, a missionary who collected materials in southwestern Alaska and in the American Southwest (fi g. 8). With the opening of the E. M. Museum of Geology and Archaeology in 1874 in what is today the faculty room of Nassau Hall, these materials migrated to that museum and became part of Princeton’s Department of Geology and Geophysical Sciences collection. The fi rst director of the E. M. Museum, William Libbey Sr. (class of 1877), continued to collect objects from southwestern Alaska, as well as facilitating trades in materials through FIGS. 2–3 (above): Views of the new Art of the Ancient Americas installation at the Princeton University Art Museum. Photo: Bruce M. White. ART on view
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