Museums - Fowler Museum of Cultural History, UCLA

This important anthropology museum was established in 1963 by then UCLA Chancellor Franklin D. Murphy as the Museum and Laboratories of Ethnic Arts and Technology. A large, state-of-the-art facility opened in fall 1992 and was named for collector and inventor Francis E. Fowler, Jr., whose family was instrumental in making the project possible.
The museum holds approximately 150,000 objects, including an African collection that offers a superb representation of the arts of several African nations including Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, Zaire, Kenya, and South Africa. The collection contains a spectacular array of Yoruba beaded objects, including a majestic throne, elaborate chiefly gowns, and sophisticated divination regalia.
Holdings from Indonesia and the Philippines include numerous sculptural works—especially from Sumatra, Borneo, Sulawesi, and Luzon—as well as important collections of baskets from Luzon and plaited mats from Borneo. The museum’s collection of betel-chewing paraphernalia, representing several countries in South and Southeast Asia, is considered one of the finest in the world. Other Asian materials include textiles from India and Japan, shadow puppets from throughout the region, and a group of sculpture and textiles from aboriginal Taiwan. The primary strength of the Oceanic collection lies in materials from Papua New Guinea, especially the Papuan Gulf, Sepik River, Maprik area, and the Massim/Trobriand region. Also included are significant holdings from Aboriginal Australia and Polynesia, including forty-five rare Maori cloaks.
The museum houses approximately 24,700 Latin American objects, including a major collection of Haitian works related to Vodou. Mexican holdings include pre-Columbian, colonial, contemporary folk, and ethnographic collections. Additional objects include traditional art, costume, and textiles from Guatemala and Panama; African-American art and material culture from Brazil and Suriname; objects field collected among the Warao and Yecuana Indians of the Orinoco Delta of Venezuela; and pre-Columbian ceramics and textiles of Peru. Native American materials from the U.S. and Canada are a small but significant part of the collection.
The Sir Henry Wellcome Collection of 30,000 objects, assembled early in the twentieth century by Wellcome and given to the museum in 1965, forms the core of the African and Oceanic holdings and represents the single largest gift. An exceptional collection of more than 900 Mexican works was donated in 1997 by the Daniel Family and includes magnificent ceramic Trees of Life, Day of the Dead figurines, and masks from Metepec, Oaxaca, Michoacan, Jalisco, Puebla, and Guanajuato.
Little of the material is on permanent display, though it appears frequently in the museum’s active exhibitions program. Storage is accessible to scholars by written request only.