Nsukka Modern Art Project
name: label: Photographer
content: Ottenberg, Simon
place: label: Place
content: Nigeria, Eastern
creator: label: Photographer
content: Ottenberg, Simon
setName: label: See more items in
content: Nsukka Modern Art Project
bioghist: label: Biographical / Historical
content: Simon Ottenberg (1923-) is Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at the University of Washington (1955-1991). He studied under Melville J. Herskovits and William R. Bascom at Northwestern University and earned his PhD in 1956. He was a 1970 Guggenheim fellow.  His areas of interest included African art, sociocultural anthropology, and indigenous North American cultures. He published multiple books during his career including Double Descent in African Society and Boyhood Rituals in African Society, and has curated numerous exhibitions.

His initial fieldwork in Nigeria during the 1950s and 1960s focused on traditional arts of the Afikpo Igbo culture. In the early 1990s, Ottenberg redirected his scholarship toward modern and contemporary Nigerian art. Ottenberg also worked with the Limba of northern Sierra Leone in the 1970s. After retirement, Ottenberg pursued his interest in Northwest Coast Native American art, in particular Coast Salish art.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 2147 Slides (photographs) (35 mm )
label: Extent
content: 125 Prints
label: Extent
content: 35 Negatives (photographic) (35 mm )
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1992-1997
custodhist: label: Custodial History
content: Donated by Simon Ottenberg, 2012.
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, National Museum of African Art
identifier: label: Identifier
content: EEPA.2012-011
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Slides (photographs)
label: Type
content: Prints
label: Type
content: Negatives (photographic)
arrangement: label: Arrangement
content: Materials kept in original order. Captions created by staff and donor metadata.
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: This collection include approximately 2,231 color 35 mm slides, negatives, prints, and associated documentation, field notes, and artist indexes related to the Nsukka Modern Art Project. Simon Ottenberg created these materials during several periods of field research in Nigeria from 1992 -1997.
relatedmaterial: label: Related Materials
content: Simon Ottenberg Papers are located at the National Anthropological Archives, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution--and at the Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies at Northwestern University. Related EEPA collections include: EEPA 1996-020 and EEPA 1994-012 (video-recorded interviews conducted by Ottenberg), EEPA 2000-007 (photographs taken in Southeastern Nigeria within the Afikpo Village Group), and EEPA 2005-001, Simon Ottenberg photographs of Limba and Afikpo Peoples.