African Collection

One of the greatest Ethnographic Arts highlights is the African collection, which has grown rapidly since 1990 when Bryn Mawr alumna Margraret Feurer Plass '17 donated select pieces from her extensive private collection to the College. A world-renowned Africanist, Mrs. Plass traveled and collected for forty years and made donations to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and to the British Museum in addition to Bryn Mawr College. Subsequently, the majority of the current African Collection was donated by Mace Neufeld and Helen Katz Neufeld '53 who collected pieces predominately from West Africa. Bryn Mawr Professor of Anthropology, Dr. Philip Kilbride has supplemented these collections with ethnographic objects he collected in East Africa in the 1960’s.

Bryn Mawr has held several exhibitions of pieces from the African collection, including a collaborative exhibition organized and sponsored by the African Studies Consortium of the University of Pennsylvania, Haverford, Bryn Mawr, and Swarthmore Colleges. The availability of Bryn Mawr's African Collection allows students, faculty, and independent researchers to gain valuable research experience on many aspects of African culture. The extensive body of material, which includes such objects as masks, figures, headdresses, beadwork and textiles, has diverse curricular potential.

Bryn Mawr College Africana Studies Department

African Collection

Asian Collection