The Indiana University Art Museum is proud to present Visions from the Forests: The Art of Liberia and Sierra Leone, the nation's first exhibition dedicated to the cultural heritage of West African neighbors Liberia and Sierra Leone. Featuring approximately 75 pieces drawn primarily from the collection of William Siegmann (1943–2011), IU Alumnus, and former curator of African Art at the Brooklyn Museum. Siegmann lived and worked in Liberia between 1965 and 1987 where he directed both the National Museum of Liberia in Monrovia and the Africana Museum at Cuttington University College (now Cuttington University).
The exhibition surveys the region's traditional and diverse art forms including masks, wooden and stone statuary, metalwork, ritual objects used in men's and women's initiation rites, and woven and dyed textiles. Organized by the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Visions from the Forests has already visited its host institution and the Smithsonian Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C. before coming to Bloomington. It will continue on to the High Museum in Atlanta, GA, after leaving the IU Art Museum.
