Pre-Columbian Art

Pre-Columbian art encompasses the visual and material cultures of the Americas before European contact, spanning civilisations including the Mochica, Maya, Aztec, Inca, Olmec, and Chavin across Mesoamerica, the Andes, and beyond. Working in stone, ceramic, textile, jade, and gold, these cultures produced objects that operated simultaneously as ritual instruments, containers, effigies, and images. The exhibition and publication history of Pre-Columbian material in the twentieth century — through galleries such as André Emmerich Inc. and institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art — shaped how these objects entered Western art historical discourse and the commercial market.

  • `Animals in Pre-Columbian Art — André Emmerich Gallery, New York — exhibition catalogue front cover. Black and white photograph of a Pre-Columbian ceramic effigy vessel: a squat, four-legged jar with a zoomorphic face — wide-set eyes, open mouth with teeth, and stubby limbs — on a grey ground. Yellow Strand Bookstore price sticker upper right ($15.00). Title in black sans-serif at foot: "ANIMALS IN PRE-COLUMBIAN ART".` `Animals in Pre-Columbian Art — André Emmerich Gallery — interior plate. Two catalogue entries. Top: Cat. no. 6, Owl, Mochica, North Coast of Peru, ca. 300 B.C.–A.D. 100. Cream and light brown pottery stirrup-spout vessel in the form of a seated owl with incised feather detail, 7" high. Bottom: Cat. no. 7, Female seal with cub, and mate, Mochica I, North Coast of Peru, ca. 500–200 B.C. Two dark grey pottery stirrup-spout vessels modelled as seals, 6½" and 7" high.`

    Animals in Pre-Columbian Art — André Emmerich Inc., New York, 1965

    Animals in Pre-Columbian Art — André Emmerich Inc., New York, 1965