Abstract:
This thesis focuses on how curatorial attitudes towards African art shifted in the
first two decades of the twentieth century in both Europe and the United States. In the
early 1900s, due to the European avant-garde’s interest in African objects, art dealers in
the United States started to focus on the aesthetics of African art. One of whom, the USbased
Mexican artist, art dealer, and theorist, Marius de Zayas, curated an exhibition in
1914 which, for the first time, portrayed objects from Africa as art. This paper examines
the exhibitions in New York City which took place between 1914 and 1923
demonstrating how de Zayas continued to challenge the display of African objects as
artifacts by showcasing them as art and juxtaposing them with European avant-garde
paintings and sculpture. This thesis combines a close examination of the complex
connections between European colonialism, art markets, and institutions with a
discussion of both the European and American avant-garde to argue that Marius de Zayas
set the precedent for the presentation and discussion of African art in the United States.
