The Collection at the BMA

Featured Works

Coiled serpent with human face, feathered body, earspools.

The Feathered Serpent Diety, Quetzalcoatl

  • Aztec culture, Tenochtitlan, Mexico, Pre-Columbian
  • stone
Square bottle with overall cobalt blue decoration

Bottle

The Collection

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Mask (mukenga or mukyeem)

In this sweeping view of a Venetian canal with historic buildings on either side, gondolas laden with passengers are being steered by their gondoliers.

View of the Grand Canal

Large round jar with foot, narrows slightly toward the bottom. Raised ridge around widest portion of vessel. Shoulder decorated with groups of angled and curved parallel incised lines; bottom half with incised geometric patterns. Reddish color with fire clouds.

Vessel

  • Bozo people, Jenne, Mali (also spelled Djenne), African
  • fired clay
An enormous and complex multi-figure painting set in an African-American beauty salon/beauty academy. Mirrors in the painting are outlined in glitter, which Marshall applies to the surface in a gel medium. The painting’s unstretched canvas surface has grommets running along its outer perimeter. The painting hangs on screws threaded through the grommets. The composition ends just short of the support’s outer edges.

School of Beauty, School of Culture

Unframed diptych, two separate 40X32 inch photographs

Mary Parker and Caela Cowan

Vertical woven paper basket with round mouth and square bottom, in Cherokee water pattern; paper dyed shades of blue, lavender, and black. Photograph of Tuckasegee River in central band; text written on paper weaving strips drawn from David Archimbault's speech to United Nations in response to Dakota Access Pipieline on Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.

Lifeline

Abstract sculpture in bronze on a slate base

Two Forms in Echelon

Large, rectangular, cast-iron plaque with the relief image of the Deposition, or Entombment of Christ, after being removed from the cross, the body of Christ is carried by Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea to the grave, behind them are the Virgin Mary swooning, Mary Magdalene, Martha and her sister Mary as well as Saint John against an architectural background, in a cast-iron frame with acanthus leaf motifs.

The Entombment of Christ

Three-Piece Garniture

"Untitled" is a large-scale color photograph of a black South African woman within a domestic interior. The three walls of the room visible in the photograph are papered in newspaper and circular advertisements for food, furnishings and other domestic products. Centered in the photograph is the woman sitting on her bed, which rests against the wall. She sits casually, with her feet crossed and one hand resting comfortably atop the other, and gazes directly at the camera with an alert but relaxed expression. The vibrant colors and patterns of her attire vie with the bed's diamond-patterned counterpane and the busy wall treatment. Pieces of gray carpeting cover the floor. A table in the foreground holds a radio, grooming products, a tin mug, and assorted papers. Above the table a purse and plastic shopping bag hang from a nail; hanging from another nail on the wall to her right are two jackets on hangers. Above and behind her on the wall is a white sign with red lettering that reads, "Everyone's a Winner with the Lucky Red Feather."

Untitled, from the series “Interiors”