The Brooklyn Museum

An important touchstone of my childhood in Brooklyn, in addition to the Botanic Garden, was the Brooklyn Museum, a place of wonders for a youngster. I didn't think of my visits there, with family or school classes, as trips to a sanctuary of art, but as a place of fun and excitement where I could see odd and interesting things. On the first floor of the museum was a large collection of Native American objects, clothing and sculpture and pottery; I vividly remember the totem poles towering over the room; what could be more thrilling? This room is now under construction, a few of the objects scattered in other galleries. But my memory still holds on to the vivid image of stylized, powerful faces rising above me.

Another favorite place was upstairs in the Decorative Arts galleries, which housed several period rooms, magical spaces for the imagination. (You can see the 17th century Schenck house, which had stood in Brooklyn here.) I loved seeing these each time we were in the museum. They are now surrounded by the Sackler Center for Feminist Art, an undreamed of idea in the 1950s.

Statue of Metjetji, detail of head, 2371-2288 BC, wood, gessoed and painted.

Statue of Metjetji, detail of hand.

The Egyptian collection, an outstanding one at the Brooklyn Museum, was a fascinating place. For a child, seeing objects from such an ancient time––the time of the Bible, of the Hanukah Haggadah––was amazing. Of course the mummies were most compelling, and I see children today still gathering around them with interest; what magical things they are!

This wood sculpture, a portrait, is so lifelike and sensitively sculpted; it seems full of breath, and grace.

Head, Yoruba, 11th-14th century, Nigeria-Ife, terracotta.

On the first floor of the museum is a small but strong collection of African art. I have to admit that I know this area fairly well because I pass through it on the way to the cafeteria. I don't have a strong childhood memory of the African work and it may be that it wasn't housed in this area when I was young, or that the Native American objects grabbed all my attention. However, I had to photograph this Yoruba head; it is quietly powerful, simple yet expressive, and subtly rendered. I see a relationship with the Egyptian portrait above; at least I see that I respond strongly to certain styles of sculpture.

There is also a very good collection of American painting at the museum, that I look at during each visit, but paintings didn't seem to be of most interest to me as a child, at least not as I remember (and memory can certainly be faulty). I think there is something more compelling in the fact and presence of an object; it draws the attention in a way the more abstract art of painting cannot do. As children we may be less sophisticated viewers, who find it hard to translate a two dimensional image into reality. I wonder if any of you have strong memories of art viewing as children; did you love any particular things you saw? did you feel, like me, that objects stayed with you more than painting?