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Arts of Africa, Oceania, and Indigenous Art of the Americas

The Eskenazi Museum of Art’s Arts of Africa, Oceania, and Indigenous Art of the Americas collection tells stories of hundreds of ethnic groups and cultures spread across four continents and the planet’s largest ocean. Some objects date from more than three thousand years ago, while others belong to practices that continue today.

Ancient Art

Art in this collection is from the vast region surrounding the Mediterranean Sea and the Near East. It invites museum visitors to look into a past world very different from our own, yet one that has continued to influence the development of ideas through modern times.

Asian and Islamic Art

The museum’s Asian and Islamic art collection spans 4,000 years. Guided by shared characteristics, the collection is organized into five major groups determined by geographic region and historical or cultural affinities, although each country has its distinct cultural heritage.
 

Contemporary Art

Our contemporary art program unites the museum’s strengths in all its existing collections while extending historical conversations about art into the present. Our contemporary collection is driven by our core teaching and learning mission.

European and American Art

This collection spans from the Middle Ages to the late twentieth century. It is particularly strong in nineteenth-century American and French landscape painting, German Expressionism, modernist sculpture, Dada (including the only complete set of Marcel Duchamp’s iconic Readymades in the United States), and post–World War II abstract painting. It also includes Stuart Davis’s mural Swing Landscape, one of the most significant American paintings of the twentieth century.

Prints, Drawings, and Photographs

Rooted in works from an IU teaching collection that dates back to 1896, our prints, drawings, and photographs collection has always been one of our largest holdings. In the 1960s, the museum established an important photography collection, which today includes the archives of Henry Holmes Smith, Art Sinsabaugh, and Jeffrey A. Wolin.
 

Henry Holmes Smith Archive

Acquired directly from Smith in 1979, the Henry Holmes Smith Archive is home to the largest public collection of Smith’s works, as well as the largest holding of works by an individual artist in the museum’s collection.

Teaching with Collections Online

Learn how to use Collections Online in your classroom with essays from members of our Education team.

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