Objects of Myth and Memory: American Indian Art at the Brooklyn Museum

The Brooklyn Museum has played a major role in presenting and interpreting North American Native art. Its commitment to this field began in 1903, when R. Stewart Culin was appointed to head its new Department of Ethnology. During three trips to the Northwest in 1905, 1908, and 1911, Culin collaborated with Dr. Charles F. Newcombe and bought several pieces from Newcombe's own collection, including objects from the Haida, Kwakiutl, Nootka, and Salish as well as some Tlingit, Tsimshian, and Athapaskan pieces. By 1912 the museum's collection included more than 9,000 pieces.

Objects of Myth and Memory is the first publication devoted to this fascinating and influential early collection. It includes two interpretive essays on Culin's career as well as 250 individual entries which illustrate and annotate his most important acquisitions.

A visually stunning book, Objects of Myth and Memory presents masterworks of North American Indian art in a precise social and historical context and offers fascinating glimpses of the collecting process.