Rare collection to be installed in galleries throughout the year

At the end of 2016, MIM acquired twenty-nine drums from mid-twentieth-century Latin America, Asia, Oceania, and the Middle East. The drums came from the Dr. Joseph H. Howard Family Collection, which is the largest private collection of drums in the United States, consisting of nearly eight hundred drums and related percussion.

Howard, who was an oral surgeon by profession and an amateur percussionist by avocation, traveled the world collecting drums and other musical instruments as well as related artifacts over the course of about forty years. Growing up in Chicago, he was intrigued by drumming and followed the tradition throughout his life. Born in Venezuela of African, European, and East Indian descent, Howard felt compelled to explore and understand his multicultural background through drumming.

Parts of Howard’s collection were included in the Smithsonian Institution’s exhibition Ritmos de Identidad / Rhythms of Identity in 2000, as well as in other displays at such museums as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles. In 1967, Howard wrote Drums in the Americas, which has become a classic in musical instrument studies.

Many of the new pieces are uniquely beautiful and rare in MIM’s collection. A select few have been on display behind the Conservation Lab window since the beginning of the year. Starting with the Haiti exhibit in March, MIM curators will gradually integrate the drum acquisitions in the appropriate Geo-Galleries.

 

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