Museum of African Art director aims to increase visibility, collections

When museum curator Christine Mullen Kreamer read a year ago that a towering sculpture of Toussaint Louverture created by Senegalese artist Ousmane Sow was up for auction, she knew it was a perfect fit for the National Museum of African Art. And Kreamer knew she had an ally, even if the acquisitions budget had to be pumped.

Johnnetta Betsch Cole, the museum's director, didn't hesitate to back her deputy director. She knew the work of this contemporary artist would again signal the museum's seriousness about living artists. She knew the statue was a showstopper, bigger-than-life-size, with its haunting carving of Louverture, the leader of the successful Haitian slave revolution against the French, comforting a slave woman at his feet.

"I can't imagine a work of art that more dramatically says what this museum is about. Here is a work of art by an African artist. Here is a portrayal of a heroic figure of the Diaspora, and the message is a cry for freedom," Cole said. "Clearly, our focus is on African art, but, clearly, we want to be part of the global community."

For more than a year, Cole, 73, has managed the museum, one of the Smithsonian's smallest, with an eye to increasing its visibility, connections and collections.

An anthropologist by training, Cole had little experience with the museum world. Instead, she has a track record of turning around educational institutions. Even so, no one is surprised by the bold steps Cole has taken, even in times of financial struggle at an underrated institution. Tall with a deep, resonant voice and commanding presence, Cole had already built a national reputation as an inspiring leader and fundraiser.

When she was president of Spelman College, a historically black women's college in Atlanta, she raised $113 million, and she also had a successful campaign for $50 million at Bennett College for Women in Greensboro, N.C. Her life in the upper reaches of the academic world stretched from 1987 to 2007, with the two college presidencies and a professorship at Emory University.

"This museum is no longer the best-kept secret at the Smithsonian. I had a dislike for that phrase, but it also pleased me. It said the museum does have a track record," Cole said with confidence, as she discussed her staff's initiatives in her office.

Cole's absence of credentials might have alarmed museum purists, but Richard Kurin, the Smithsonian undersecretary for history, art and culture, said he knew she would succeed.

"She has a way of translating issues to an international and national stage, " Kurin said. "As president of a college, she connected with scholars, international organizations and donors. And those are good skills to have at a museum." In fiscal 2008, the museum raised $454, 885; last year, it raised $816, 909.

Education programs and outreach to Washington's foreign service and diplomatic sectors has always been a strong suit for the African Art Museum. At one point, it had more student visitors than adult patrons. Cole knows academic audiences well. A native of Florida with a bachelor's degree in sociology from Oberlin and a doctorate and master's in anthropology from Northwestern University, she has a whopping 54 honorary degrees.

And throughout her tenure in academia, she maintained a love of African art and did field work in Liberia, Haiti and Cuba. She also co-curated an exhibition on kente cloth at Emory University.

"We are much more conscious about outreach," she said, and not just the collectors of African art or the diplomatic corps, now headed by ambassador Roble Olhaye of Djibouti. "I want to intersect also with the African immigrant community," Cole said, adding that she interviews every cabdriver with roots in Africa about the museum.

Outreach takes many forms. When the museum was planning an exhibition on objects that illustrated animals, it surveyed its own collection. In 2005, the museums was given the Walt Disney-Tishman African Art Collection, a 500-piece survey that had plenty of examples. But the curators also called on the National Museum of Natural History, the National Postal Museum, the Discovery Theater and the National Zoo to learn how they use animals in education projects. One innovation was putting aside six objects of art that blind and low-vision visitors could handle, and also publishing a guide in Braille.

This month, the museum features an exploration of the art of the coiled basket, a carryover from many parts of Africa. The show is a collaboration of four organizations, led by the Museum for African Art in New York. Earlier this year, a survey show of Yinka Shonibare, the acclaimed Nigerian-British artist, drew 122, 662 visitors. The exhibition was organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney and was part of the Smithsonian museum's celebration of Nigeria's 50th year of independence, an ongoing two-year program at the museum.

A visit by Haiti first lady Elisabeth Delatour Préval to the museum after the January earthquake led to a project in which Haitian children expressed their emotions through artwork created inside converted buses. Their paintings will be displayed at the Smithsonian this summer. Cole also reached out to singer Angelique Kidjo to star in a fundraiser that netted $227,000. And she invited her friend Camille Cosby, the educator and philanthropist who gave $20 million to Spelman, to join the museum's expanded, 18-member board.

"I just want to make sure this museum is owned by everyone," she said. Its underground location has created some isolation. Sometimes, tourists didn't know it existed, although it has been part of the Smithsonian for 31 years. Last year, 403,000 people visited, compared with 322,000 in 2008. But the encyclopedic museums of the Smithsonian attract millions each year.

One Saturday morning, Cole led a group of emerging leaders through the museum. Not an unusual task for a director of a small museum, but one that gave her a framework for the future. "They asked how did I think we can help people rethink how they think about Africa," Cole said. "That gave me reaffirmation of the power of this place."