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Museum Collections

The museum's support and collections grew slowly but steadily in the years leading up to its move to Neff Hall. In 2001, the museum organized an expedition into Western New Guinea, where they collected a major collection of nearly one thousand objects of Asmat tribal art. Asmat art is famous for its large size, beauty, artistic quality and rarity. The only other comparable collections in the United States are the Michael Rockefeller Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and the holdings of the American Museum of Asmat Art in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Currently the museum features collections of Chinese and Asian cultural objects, African Sculptures, Southwest Pueblo Pottery, pre-Columbian ceramics, ethnographic Asmat art, archaeological artifacts from the American Plains and southwest, major ethnographic collections of Latin American Textiles, Guatemalan dance masks and costumes, Oceanic material, and Native American beadwork and basketry. The museum is a repository for Federal Government Archaeological collections used by students for educational and research purposes.

Collection Highlights

  • Asmat

    Explore traditional and ceremonial art of the Asmat, an ethnic group of New Guinea residing in the Papua province of Indonesia, in one of the largest and most important collections of its kind found in the United States.

    The collection includes cultural reference about the objects and how they fit into Asmat life and ritual.

  • Southwest Pottery

    The Morgan Collection of Southwest Pottery features 113 ceramic pieces from the pueblos of Acoma, Cochiti, Hopi, Isleta, Jemez, Laguna, Picuris, Santa Ana, Santa Clara, Santo Domingo, San Ildefonso, San Juan, Taos, Tesuque, Zia and Zuni. The collection centers on the culture and history of pueblos of the southwest, using pottery as a visual focal point.

  • Textiles

    Textiles and clothing are often an intricate part of cultural identity. Designs are often hand woven and can have symbolic meaning or reflect the world view or universal cosmology of the people. In many areas of the world, village affiliation is associated with particular designs or styles of clothing. The Holmes collection includes textiles and traditional clothing of Chinese nationalities, southeast Asia, Mexico, and Mayan weavings of Guatemala.

  • Additional Collections

    The museum boasts a vast collection from all over the world, including Aboriginal bark art, African statues and ceramics from Meso-America.

Help Us Grow

The museum is funded primarily by private donations and is continually working to fund student scholarships, student positions, exhibitions, field collecting expeditions, curation supplies, equipment, and acquisitions. The administration of the Holmes Museum feels that field collecting ethnographic material directly from the maker or the users is extremely important. Over the years, museum staff and anthropology and museum studies students have traveled to different parts of the world to create these collections.

If you are interested in helping the museum with the donation of objects or funds, please contact Rachelle Meinecke, the Museum Director or contact the Wichita State University Foundation.

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