World Art  

Contact World Art

The World Art staff are working on the redevelopment of the James Green Gallery of World Art at Brighton Museum & Art Gallery. The World Art Gallery will close from 3 January whilst this exciting redevelopment takes place and will reopen on 23 June 2012 presenting World Stories. During this time we are only able to answer straightforward enquiries and are unable to offer public access to the reserve collections. We apologise for any inconvenience caused. The World Art collection is a Designated collection of objects from Africa, Asia, the Pacific and Americas.

 General Enquiries Form [MS Word 43k]

Browse objects in the World Art collection

Brighton & Hove Museums’ outstanding world art collection is one of the most significant regional collections in Britain, numbering more than 13,000 items from Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas, and formally designated of national importance. The collection provides unique, tangible evidence of how British – and, specifically, Brighton – people have engaged with the world.

The early ethnographic collection was singled out as far back as 1938 by a Carnegie Trust report as ‘amazingly rich in objects that cannot now be acquired for love or money’. In 1991 it was described by the Financial Times as ‘one of Britain's richest collections of non-western art’.

Accumulated over the last two centuries, the objects date back two millennia and range from world textiles and religious iconography to performance-related material from around the world.

Since its foundation in 1873, Brighton & Hove Museums have actively collected objects from Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas. The bulk of the collections were acquired between 1870 and 1940, as members of the colonial service and missionaries returned from the outposts of empire to retire to the south coast. A number of significant late 19th and early 20th century collections were thus obtained, either purchased or donated as museum bequests. These included the extensive Oceanic collections of James Lloyd Ashbury and William Kebbell; the exceptional Mendeland textile collections of Thomas Joshua Alldridge; and Frederick William Lucas’s unique collection of objects made from animal, human or plant materials from across the globe.

The James Henry Green Charitable Trust

One of the key collectors was James Henry Green, who assembled an important collection of textiles, photographs, notes, books and diaries from the northern hill states of Burma (Myanmar) in the 1920s and 1930s. In 1992, the James Henry Green Charitable Trust chose Brighton & Hove Museums to be the long-term caretaker of the collection. This provided an annual endowment which has enabled the museum to develop the collection in exciting and dynamic new ways, including through collecting, commissioning, audience development, publication and research.

The support of the Trust and other funders has also enabled the world art collection to be used as a platform for engagement with source communities outside the UK and with diaspora and other communities living in Brighton & Hove. Sustained partnerships continue – for example, with makers and researchers in Burma, and with local organisations such as the Hindu Women’s Group.

The collection today

Today, Brighton & Hove Museums’ world art collection is designated of national importance. Its collections from Burma, Sierra Leone and Oceania are of international significance, while its collections from China, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Ghana, East Africa and the Arctic region are major national resources.

Among the collection’s highlights are
• a 19th century ceremonial Yoruba woodcarving from Nigeria
• a striking 2nd to 4th century Greco-inspired Gandharan Buddha
• a monumental 19th century ‘winged fish’ from New Ireland, Papua New Guinea; and
• eight 19th century jewelled offering bowls from Burma.

The textile holdings, from ancient archaeological Peruvian to a substantial 20th century Burmese collection, are unequalled in any other regional or national collection. Likewise, the puppets, masks and performance related material from China, Java, India, Nigeria, Burma and Vietnam form a cultural resource of considerable distinction. Increasingly, new strands of contemporary collecting are being developed to ensure the collection retains relevance, through partnerships with makers in source communities, and through more traditional means of acquisition, such as purchases.

The galleries

A selection of the collection’s key artefacts can be seen in the James Green Gallery of World Art at Brighton Museum & Art Gallery.

The gallery is divided into three distinct spaces.
• Makers explores how objects have been created with skill and invention in response to the needs and cultural traditions of their communities.
• Believers examines how religious belief can transform the meaning and power of an object.
• Collectors looks at the underlying impetus that has driven major world collectors for the last 200 years, and set their collections in social and historical contexts.

The World Art collection also features in Brighton Museum's special Performance and Body galleries. The former uses the international collection of puppets, masks and ceremonial costumes to explore the roles of performers, spectators and makers in diverse cultures. The latter examines how different world cultures interpret and transform the body through objects, images and ritual practices.

Currently Brighton & Hove Museums staff are working towards a redevelopment of the James Green Gallery of World Art. The new gallery will be developed in partnership with young people. It is planned to open in 2012 to coincide with Britain’s hosting of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Offering exciting new acquisitions, innovative methods of display and interpretation and use of technologies, it will play a key role in attracting young people to Brighton Museum & Art Gallery and in engaging this audience with a unique international collection.

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