There are five ways to search the Collections of the National Museum of African Art.

Collections: Thematic or curator selected "mini" exhibitions of artworks that serve as an entry point to the diversity to the collection.

Simple Search: Enter a general term, such a country name, object type or Peoples: from here you can redefine your search. Underlined names on the results pages are hyperlinked to related records. If you click on the underlined maker's name in the text list of objects, you will link to the detailed record for that Artist or People. From here you can browse all objects created by this artist or People.

Advanced Search for Objects: Use the Advanced Search options to search Objects by Classification, Country, Name (object name), Titles (Modern Contemporary artworks), Object number (accession number), People (Makers / Artists), or Date or by any combination of these criteria. Underlined names on the results pages are hyperlinked to related records. If you click on the underlined maker's name in the text list of objects, you will link to the detailed record for that Artist or People. From here you can browse all objects created by this artist or People.

Advanced Search for People: Use the Advanced Search options to search People by Name or Date or a combination of the two.

People: Works of art may be searched by their Makers (Related Peoples) listed alphabetically. Underlined names on the results pages are hyperlinked to related records. If you click on the underlined maker's name in the text list of objects, you will link to the detailed record for that Artist or People. From here you can browse all objects created by this artist or People. Example: Yoruba peoples or Yinka Shonibare. Note: The creators of tradition-based African art are known and respected members of their communities. Unfortunately, those who created many of the exquisite works now found in museum collections remain unknown because their names were not recorded when the objects were collected many decades ago and so these works are indentified within a 'stylistic' or cultural heritage.

Display Options

After running a search, you can view results in three different ways:

View lightbox (default). Screen displays twelve images to a page with the object title as caption.

View as text list. Text list shows you a list of records with very basic information with thumbnail images.

View 1 record at a time. Viewing one record at a time will provide full details for the object record as well as underlined links to related records. A preview image of the object will appear to the left of the text, which can be enlarged by clicking the Enlarge Image button. The museum does not hold copyright for all of the Modern and Contemporary artworks in the collection and such information is available by clicking the Copyright Info button.

To change the display, click the button next to the display option.

Rights and Reproduction: Access to and use of National Museum of African Art/Smithsonian Institution image files and data are subject to the terms and conditions available at http://africa.si.edu/about/rights.html. High resolution digital images are not available for some objects. For publication quality photography and permissions, please contact the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives.