L.A.’s Autry Museum spent 18 years moving 400,000 Native objects. That’s just the start.
A: “The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian is getting on a plane today to deliver its huge collection of Native American art to Los Angeles and New York.”
The museum is now being called “the Smithsonian’s Indian Museum”, and part of it will eventually go to the New York museum, which was founded in 1851.
The Smithsonian is opening a new Indian collection gallery and library in New York that will show the entire archive of Native American objects the Smithsonian has acquired over the years.
It’s part of what is being called the “American Indian Museum Initiative,” which is being spearheaded by Smithsonian’s Llewellyn P. Davis, director of the U.S. National Museum, and Mary Jane Wigfall, who is the acting executive director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian.
“This museum is now part of the Smithsonian, has been part of the Smithsonian for over 100 years and will be a part of the new Smithsonian Indian Museum,” said Wigfall.
She added, “This will be an incredible library for the world and it will expand the resources for teaching and sharing the legacy of all of our peoples.”
According to the Smithsonian, its collection of 5.6 million objects, images, and documents is the largest single collection of its kind in the world. In its first year, the museum expects to acquire or buy 10,000 new objects.
Wigfall says that the Smithsonian hopes the new wing — which is called the Center for Native American and Indigenous Cultures — will be ready for opening in 2020.
“We are very excited by this, but also very humbled at the opportunity to bring the largest single collection of Native American materials to New York,” Wigfall said.
The U.S. National Museum is the Smithsonian’s only museum that is dedicated to indigenous peoples. Many objects the museum acquired through the “American Indian Museum Initiative” are going back to their original locations. The Museum also plans to build a new facility to house its extensive collection of objects, images and documents on display.
In the meantime, the Smithsonian’s other Indian collection is a traveling exhibit.
The Smithsonian wants to show what the collection means to Native Americans. It’s in its 21st century form and features objects spanning the past 200 years of the
