The Fowler Museum at UCLA (commonly known as The Fowler, and formerly Museum of Cultural History and Fowler Museum of Cultural History) is a museum on the campus of the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school the ...

(UCLA) which explores art and material culture primarily from

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

and the Pacific, and the Americas, past and present. The Fowler is generally home to three to six art exhibitions and also acts as a venue for lectures on cultural topics, musical performances, art workshops, family programs, festivals and more. The Fowler is located in the northern part of UCLA's Westwood Campus, adjacent to

Royce Hall Royce Hall is a building on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Designed by the Los Angeles firm of Allison & Allison (James Edward Allison, 1870–1955, and his brother David Clark Allison, 1881–1962) and completed ...

and Glorya Kaufman Hall. The museum is operated under the jurisdiction of

UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture The UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture (UCLA Arts) is a professional school at the University of California, Los Angeles. Through its four degree-granting departments, it provides a range of course offerings and programs. Additionally, the ...

History

Fowler Museum Construction stg extracted

The museum was established in 1963 by then UCLA Chancellor

Franklin D. Murphy Franklin David Murphy (January 29, 1916 – June 16, 1994) was an American administrator, educator, and medical doctor. During his life, he served as Chancellor of the University of Kansas (KU) and Chancellor of the University of California, Los ...

as the Museum and Laboratories of Ethnic Arts and Technology. Its first home was in the basement of Haines Hall on the UCLA campus. The goal of this new museum was to consolidate the various collections of non-Western art and artifacts on campus. In addition to active collecting, the museum initiated research projects, fieldwork, exhibitions and publications. In 1971, the name was changed to the Museum of Cultural History and by 1975, its collections, in numbers and in quality, ranked it among the top four university museums in the country, a stature it retains to the present day. In 1981, UCLA Chancellor

Charles E. Young Charles Edward Young (December 30, 1931 – October 22, 2023), nicknamed Chuck Young, was an American university administrator and professor. A native of California, Young led the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) for 29 years as cha ...

, along with museum director, Christopher B. Donnan, developed a plan for a new building to better exhibit the collection. The $22-million structure, designed by architects Arnold C. Savrann and

John Carl Warnecke John Carl "Jack" Warnecke (February 24, 1919 – April 17, 2010)Brown, "John Carl Warnecke Dies at 91, Designed Kennedy Gravesite," ''Washington Post,'' April 23, 2010.Grimes, "John Carl Warnecke, Architect to Kennedy, Dies at 91," ''The New York ...

, was funded by both private gifts and state resources. The large facility called the Fowler Museum of Cultural History opened on September 30, 1992, named in recognition of lead support by the Fowler Foundation and the family of collector and inventor Francis E. Fowler Jr., former owner of

Southern Comfort Southern Comfort (often abbreviated SoCo) is an American naturally fruit-flavored whiskey liqueur with fruit and spice accents. The brand was created by bartender Martin Wilkes Heron in New Orleans in 1874, using whiskey as the base spirit. Whi ...

. In 1996, Doran H. Ross became the director of the Fowler. In 2006, the name of the museum was formally changed to the Fowler Museum at UCLA. In 2024, the museum repatriated to Ghana several artifacts in its collection that were previously looted by British forces from the

Ashanti Empire The Asante Empire ( Asante Twi: ), also known as the Ashanti Empire, was an Akan state that lasted from 1701 to 1901, in what is now modern-day Ghana. It expanded from the Ashanti Region to include most of Ghana and also parts of Ivory Coast ...

in the 19th century. These included an elephant tail whisk, an ornamental chair made of wood, leather and iron, two gold stool ornaments, a gold necklace and two bracelets. That same year the museum also repatriated 20 objects to the Waramungu community in Australia.

Collections

The Fowler's collections comprise more than 120,000 art and ethnographic and 600,000 archaeological objects representing ancient, traditional, and contemporary cultures of Africa, Native and Latin America, and Asia and the Pacific. The majority of the Fowler's holdings have been acquired via donations by individuals. The Sir Henry Wellcome Collection of 30,000 objects, assembled early in the 20th century by

Sir Henry Wellcome Sir Henry Solomon Wellcome (21 August 1853 – 25 July 1936) was an American and British pharmaceutical entrepreneur. He founded the pharmaceutical company Burroughs Wellcome & Company with his colleague Silas Burroughs in 1880, which is one o ...

and given to the museum in 1965, forms the core of its African and Pacific holdings and represents the single largest gift. More than 15,000 textiles trace the history of cloth over two millennia and across five continents. Objects from the Fowler Family Silver Collection include 400 works representing 16th- through 19th-century Europe and the United States. Among these are vessels from the workshops of

Paul de Lamerie Paul Jacques de Lamerie (9 April 1688 – 1 August 1751) was a London-based silversmith. The Victoria and Albert Museum describes him as the "greatest silversmith working in England in the 18th century". He was being referred to as the "King's ...

, Karl Fabergé, and

Paul Revere Paul Revere (; December 21, 1734 O.S. (January 1, 1735 N.S.)May 10, 1818) was an American silversmith, military officer and industrialist who played a major role during the opening months of the American Revolutionary War in Massachusetts, ...

. In 1969, Hollywood actress

Natalie Wood Natalie Wood (née Zacharenko; July 20, 1938 – November 29, 1981) was an American actress. She began acting at age four and co-starred at age eight in ''Miracle on 34th Street'' (1947). As a teenager, she was nominated for an Academy Award f ...

donated a collection of ancient

Chupícuaro Chupícuaro is an important prehispanic archeological site in what is now Guanajuato, Mexico, from the late preclassical or formative period. The culture that takes its name from the site dates to 400 BC to 200 AD, or alternatively 500 BC to 3 ...

Mexican ceramics to the Fowler Museum. In 2013, the Fowler Museum received several gifts in honor of its fiftieth anniversary. One gift was estimated to be worth around $14 million, from collector and Silicon Valley pioneer

Jay Last Jay Taylor Last (October 18, 1929 – November 11, 2021) was an American physicist, silicon pioneer, and member of the so-called "traitorous eight" that founded Silicon Valley. Early life and education Last was born in Butler, Pennsylvania, on ...

and his wife, Deborah. As reported by the

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

, the gift consisted of 92 wood and ivory objects from the Lega people of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Most of the holdings have been collected in the field and systematically documented, providing contextual information. As the museum augments its programming to meet the interests of the city's growing Latin American population, collection activities in this area have increased. A collection of more than 900 Mexican works was donated in 1997 by the Daniel Family and includes ceramic Trees of Life,

Day of the Dead The Day of the Dead () is a holiday traditionally celebrated on November 1 and 2, though other days, such as October 31 or November 6, may be included depending on the locality. The multi-day holiday involves family and friends gathering to pa ...

figurines, and masks from Metepec, Oaxaca, Michoacan, Jalisco, Puebla, and Guanajuato.

Exhibitions

*Intersections: World Arts, Local Lives *Reflecting Culture: The Francis E. Fowler, Jr. Collection of Silver *Plus several changing exhibitions * Continental Rifts: Contemporary Time-based Works of Africa, 2009

Selected collection highlights

File:Chief’s Mask from Haida peoples.jpg, ''Chief's Mask'',

Haida people The Haida (, , , , ) are an Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. They constitute one of 203 First Nations in British Columbia and 231 federally recognized List of Alaska Native tribal entities, tribes in Alaska. T ...

, British Columbia, 19th century, File:Buddha from Sagaing, Burma.jpg, ''Buddha'', Sagaing, Burma, 17th century File:Bamileke Mask (tsesah).jpg, ''Mask (tsesah)'',

Bamileke people The Bamiléké people are an ethnic group of Central Africa that inhabits the Western High Plateau colloquially known as the ''grassfields'' of Cameroon. According to Dr John Feyou de Hapy, Bamiléké means "people of faith". Languages The B ...

, Bamendjo, Cameroon, Late 19th century File:Headdress from Efut peoples.jpg, ''Headdress'', Efut peoples, Calabar, Nigeria, 19th century File:Hornbill Figure from Borneo.jpg, ''Hornbill figure'', Iban, Borneo, 19th century File:Moche portrait vessel from Peru.jpg, ''Portrait vessel'', Moche style, north coast Peru,100–800 C.E. File:Ornament for a sacred flute from Mundugumor peoples.jpg, ''Ornament for a sacred flute'',

Mundugumor people The Mundugumor Biwat are an indigenous people of Papua New Guinea. They live on the Yuat River in East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea, and speak the Mundugumor language and Melanesian Pidgin. Anthropological studies by Margaret Mead The Mun ...

, Yuat River, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea, 19th century File:Yombe Power Figure (Nkisi).jpg, ''Power figure'' (nkisi nkondi), Yombe peoples, Democratic Republic of the Congo, 18th–19th century File:Odundo Ceramic.jpg, ''Ceramic'',

Magdalene Odundo Dame Magdalene Anyango Namakhiya Odundo (born 1950) is a Kenyan-born United Kingdom, British Studio pottery, studio potter, who now lives in Farnham, Surrey. Her work is in the collections of notable museums including the Art Institute of Chic ...

(Kenya, b. 1950) File:Puppet the Blind Scholar.jpg, ''Hand puppet, the Blind Scholar'', Chinese, Taiwan, Early–mid-20th century File:Santo, Virgin of the Rosary from Guatemala.jpg, '' Santo, Virgin of the Rosary'', Guatemala, Early 20th century File:Mask (amiilk) from Tsimshian peoples.jpg, ''Mask (amiilk)'', Tsimshian peoples, British Columbia, Canada, 19th century

Directors

*Christopher B. Donnan (1981–1996) *Doran H. Ross (1996–2001) *Marla C. Berns (2001–2021) *Silvia Forni (2022-) In 2007, Berns' position was endowed by a $1 million donation from Los Angeles philanthropists Shirley and Ralph Shapiro in recognition of her contributions to UCLA and the community. In 2013, Berns received the medal of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters of the French Republic in a ceremony conducted by Stéphane Martin, president of the

Quai Branly Museum A wharf ( or wharfs), quay ( , also ), staith, or staithe is a structure on the shore of a harbour or on the bank of a river or canal where ships may dock to load and unload cargo or passengers. Such a structure includes one or more berths ( ...

. The ceremony took place at the Quai Branly Museum in Paris on Tues., Nov 12, at the opening of ''Secrets d'ivoire: L'art des Lega d'Afrique centrale'', an exhibition of the Fowler Museum's collection of African artwork by the

Lega people The Lega people (or Warega) are a Bantu peoples, Bantu ethnic group of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In 1998 their population was about 250,000. Location By the 1970s Lega people were mostly living in the middle and upper Elila River, E ...

s of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which was donated to the Fowler by collectors Jay T. and Deborah R. Last.

References

External links

Fowler Museum Overview of Collections
{{authority control Museums in Los Angeles University of California, Los Angeles buildings and structures University museums in California Ethnographic museums in California Art museums and galleries in California Art museums and galleries established in 1963 1963 establishments in California Pre-Columbian art museums in the United States Asian art museums in the United States Mesoamerican art museums in the United States African art museums in the United States