Museums - SANA Art Foundation

The SANA Art Foundation is a non profit organization that was founded by Edward and Mina Smith in 1996. In 2004, work began on a new location in Escondido and the new building now provides educational programs that relate to the historical and evolving culture of Native American, African, and Oceanic peoples. The foundation has a collection of over 1,000 objects from South and East Africa, as well as more than 1,000 objects from elsewhere in Africa, Oceania and Americas. The library has over 2,000 books and periodicals on non-Western art.
A significant portion of the foundation’s South and East African art collection originates from the former Prynnesberg Museum, a privately owned collection formed by Charles Newberry in the late nineteenth century. Beadwork, wood and ceramic vessels, headrests, staffs, statues, puppets, and wirework make up most of the artifact collection.
A Blackfoot war shirt, c.1880, from the Northern Plains is also of particular interest, as is an Oceanic tapa/kapa collection of bark cloth and a nineteenth century Tolei Mask.