The collection was donated by Ross’s partner, Betsy D. Quick.
“Doran Ross was a pre-eminent scholar, a prolific curator and author, and a beloved teacher and mentor to many,” said Mary Miller, director of the Getty Research Institute. “It will be our honor to make his extensive archive available to researchers. His library collection adds important works on West African art and culture and will expand the Getty Library’s significant international holdings.”
The donation comprises a scholar’s library and research archive with copious books, ephemera, and slides related to Ghana and other cultures of West Africa. The library and archive also have a strong museum component, including research files and dense notebooks with accompanying photographs detailing fieldwork and work on a multitude of exhibitions, both realized and unrealized. Ross was an extraordinary photographer, and his stunning photographs of Akan chiefs dressed in sumptuous kente cloth and gold regalia have been published widely; all of his field photography (numbering in the thousands) is included in the gift to the GRI.
“Doran Ross’s research was transformative to a field of study that has greatly expanded in recent years,” said Kathleen Salomon, chief librarian and associate director. “His expertise and thoughtfulness are evident in the range of important, and sometimes rare, publications and ephemera he amassed over the years. The Getty Library serves researchers from around the world at all levels and Ross’s contribution to the field will be a tremendous resource. We are very grateful to Betsy Quick for this generous gift.”
Doran Ross earned his bachelor’s in art history and psychology from California State University, Fresno and received his master’s in art history at UC Santa Barbara; his research interests centered on the royal and military arts of the Akan peoples of Ghana. He went on to teach at various California institutions before coming to the Fowler Museum at UCLA in 1981. Ross was largely responsible for setting the standard for the Fowler Museum’s highly researched, contextualized, and multimedia exhibitions of global arts, often paired with a scholarly volume, a paradigm that has continued to the present. Among the many highlights of his tenure were his contributions to getting the new Fowler Museum facility designed and built in 1992.
During his 20-year tenure at the institution he curated major exhibitions such as Elephant! The Animal and its Ivory in African Culture (1992), Music in the Life of Africa (1999), Wrapped in Pride: Ghanaian Kente and African American Identity (1999), and Main Event: The Ali/Foreman Extravaganza through the Lens of Howard Bingham (2000); and project-directed dozens of exhibitions, including Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou (1995), Crowning Achievements: African Arts of Dressing the Head (1995), and Beads, Body and Soul: Art and Light in the Yoruba Universe (1998). Over his career, Ross curated nearly 40 African and African American exhibitions shown at 30 venues internationally. His tenure at the Fowler was also a time when the museum’s reputation as an innovator in the development of exhibitions and the production of multiauthor publications was established with distinction.
In addition, he was a prolific writer, authoring The Arts of Ghana (1977) with Herbert M. Cole; Akan Gold from the Glassell Collection (2002); Royal Arts of the Akan: West African Gold in Museum Liaunig (2009); and Art, Honor and Ridicule: Fante Asafo Flags from Southern Ghana (2017) with Silvia Forni; edited a number of major publications with multiple contributors, including Elephant: The Animal and Its Ivory in African Culture (1992); and Wrapped in Pride: Ghanaian Kente and African American Identity (1998); and served as an editor of the UCLA journal African Arts from 1988–2015, where he wrote more than 50 articles, reviews, and editorials.
Ross made 37 research and development trips to 18 African countries. He was on the board of the West African Museums Programme (1993–2000), an Africa-based organization promoting museums; was appointed to the Advisory Committee of the Getty Leadership Institute (2000–2003); was a member of the arts and artifacts indemnity advisory panel of the National Endowment of the Arts (1996–1999); served as co-editor of Textile: The Journal of Cloth and Culture from 2002 to 2012 and of volume 1 (Africa) of The Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion (2010), both with Joanne Eicher. He was heavily involved in the Arts Council of the African Studies Association, the primary international organization dedicated to the arts of Africa and the African diaspora, serving as president from 1987–1989; and was awarded the ACASA Leadership Award in 2011 “in recognition of the recipient’s excellence, innovative contributions, and vision in the fields of African and Diasporic Arts.” A special issue of the journal African Arts dedicated to the work and legacy of Ross has just been released.
The collection will be cataloged over the course of a number of years and then made available to researchers at the Getty Research Institute.