William Siegmann

William Siegmann, Curator Emeritus, Brooklyn Museum

Longtime Friends of Liberia member William Siegmann, Curator Emeritus of the Arts of Africa and the Pacific Islands at the Brooklyn Museum, passed away peacefully on Nov. 29, 2011. He was 68. His contribution to the understanding of Liberia, its art and history, is unmatched.

Bill was one of the leading experts on the arts of Liberia and Sierra Leone. He wrote extensively on the arts of masquerades and age grades in this region, and on issues in museology, collecting, and interpretation. Bill also shared his skills in collections development broadly, conducting frequent seminars on museum management and curatorial training in Europe, Africa, and South America through grants from UNESCO and the U.S. Department of State. He also taught at numerous universities in Africa and the U.S., according to his friend and colleague at the Brooklyn Museum, Kevin D. Dumouchelle, Assistant Curator, Arts of Africa and the Pacific Islands.

Bill’s first experience in Liberia was as a Peace Corps Volunteer, starting in 1965. He taught at Cuttington University, where he also founded the Africana Museum. Bill returned to Liberia to pursue research between 1974 and 1976, which was supported by a Fulbright-Hays fellowship. On his return to the U.S., he served as a curator, first at the Museum of the Society of African Missions, in Tenafly, N.J., and then at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco from 1979 to 1984. He returned to Liberia on a Fulbright fellowship in 1984. In conjunction with the West African Museums Programme, he served as Director of the National Museum of Liberia, in Monrovia, where he oversaw the renovation of the museum’s nineteenth-century building and the expansion and re-installation of its collections.

Diane Chehab, a travel blogger, interviewed Bill in 2010 and wrote this about his experience as director of the National Museum: “Samuel Doe had taken power, after a violent coup. Siegmann was tasked with setting up a National Museum in a building from the mid-19th Century, the old Legislature Hall. He met with Samuel Doe–in person–to secure funding to renovate the building, which was in serious disrepair. Rather than money, he was awarded a line of credit for up to $60,000 with a building supplies company. A workforce was provided by the Ministry for Public Works.

“It took three years and a mountain of obstacles to renovate the building. No architect was provided; Siegmann worked with the site workers to figure out solutions. They had to remove and replace the roof, floors… as the building was in very bad condition.

“The West African Museums Programme provided additional funds to acquire a collection. Siegmann traveled to villages all over Liberia to buy objects. The Museum, when it opened, featured 3 floors: first floor: historical pieces; second floor: ethnographic; third floor: contemporary art exhibitions.
“In 1987, having completed the museum project, Siegmann was offered a position as curator at Brooklyn Museum in New York.”

During Liberia’s civil war, both the national museum and that of Cuttington University were ruined, their collections looted. Bill took the opportunity to return to Liberia in 1997 as an election observer with the Friends of Liberia to survey the damage. Friends in that delegation recollected him scouring the art shops in Monrovia for the pieces that had belonged to the collections he had built at the two museums. Bill returned to Liberia a few years ago to consult with the Liberian Government about the National Museum.

According to Mr. Dumouchelle: “During his tenure at Brooklyn from 1987 to 2007, Bill acquired over 1,600 objects for the museum, a prolific record of considered connoisseurship that is unmatched in the history of Brooklyn’s African and Pacific collections. He also organized at least eight major exhibitions at Brooklyn, including “African Art and Leadership,” “Image and Reflection: Adolph Gottlieb’s Pictographs and African Sculpture,” “In Pursuit of the Spiritual: Oceanic Art Given by Mr. and Mrs. John A. Friede and Mrs. Melville W. Hall,” “African Furniture,” and “Masterworks of African Art from the Collection of Beatrice Riese,” as well as four separate re-installations of the African and Pacific Islands collections.

He authored African Art: A Century at the Brooklyn Museum (Prestel, 2009), the first catalogue on the museum’s collection. Most recently, Bill served as a consultant to the Saint Louis Art Museum.

A memorial service will be held on what would have been his 69th birthday, Jan. 8, 2012, at 3:30 p.m. At St. Luke’s in the Fields, 487 Hudson St., New York City. A posting on Facebook offered the following information: On December 21 or 22 the Episcopal Bishop of Liberia will conduct a service in Bolahun that is being hosted by the Bolay family. There will be a second service in Liberia, in Monrovia, that will coincide with the memorial at St. Luke in the Fields. A Minneapolis service is scheduled for 1:30 on Dec. 28 at Lakewood Cemetery, 3600 Hennepin Ave.