Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art
1133 East Seventh Street
Bloomington, IN 47405-7509
1133 East Seventh Street
Bloomington, IN 47405-7509
Allison J. Martino joined the museum as the Laura and Raymond Wielgus Curator of the Art of Africa, Oceania, and Indigenous Art of the Americas in 2020. Martino is also Affiliate Faculty in Indiana University’s African Studies Program and an Associate Editor of Africa Today, published by Indiana University Press. In 2023, Martino published Form and Surface: African Ceramics from the William M. Itter Collection, which explores ceramics through issues related to cross-cultural exchange, borders, embodiment, temporality, and spirituality.
Martino’s research interests include textiles and fashion, photography, and contemporary arts in Africa. She recently guest co-edited with Raymond Silverman a special issue of the journal Ghana Studies (2022) on “Looking Back, Looking Forward, Visual Art Studies in Ghana.” Martino’s article on the circulation of adinkra motifs in factory-printed textiles was awarded the Pasold Research Fund’s Pasold Prize for best article published in Textile History in 2020. Fellowships and grants from Fulbright-Hays, American Council of Learned Societies, and the University of Michigan have supported Martino’s research on adinkra cloth in Ghana, England, and the Netherlands.
Martino was previously a Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art (BCMA), Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Africana Studies at Bowdoin College, and Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellow at the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA). Prior exhibitions include Masks of Memories: Art and Ceremony in Nineteenth Century Oceania (BCMA) and Unrecorded: Reimagining Artist Identities in Africa (UMMA). Martino’s teaching background includes courses in African art and visual culture as well as global textiles and fashion that she taught at Bowdoin College, Arizona State University, and the University of Michigan. She earned her PhD in the history of art at the University of Michigan, MA in the history of art at Indiana University, and BA in studio art at Denison University.
