DMA seeks to create a truly encyclopedic collection through housing collections that encompass nearly every human culture in history. The 20,000 objects in the collection are balanced both geographically and historically. The museum has important collections of European and American paintings; prints, and sculpture; postwar American art; decorative arts; Asian; ancient American; African; classical; Egyptian; and American Indian art.
Arts of the Americas: Comprising approximately 3,700 ancient American works from Mesoamerica, Central America, and South America, this collection includes works in stone, ceramics, gold, and textiles, representing the Olmec, Maya Veraguas, Calima, Chavin, Paracas, Moche, Masca, Sican , and Chimu cultures.
300 pieces of Native North American art.
The American art collection spans the colonial period to World War II, and includes paintings, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts. Important collections include the 18th- and 19th-century decorative arts, American silver from the colonial era to 1930, 19th-century landscape paintings, and 20th-century modernist paintings.
Arts of Europe: With approximately 5,000 works, the European collection spans the Cycladic period to the mid-20th century. Highlights of the collection include ancient Greek and Etruscan gold jewelry, 18th-century paintings, early modern paintings and sculpture, Wendy and Emery Reves Collection of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings
and drawings, European furniture, and Chinese export porcelain.
Art of Africa: Collections include ancient Egyptian sculpture; sub-Saharan sculpture from Zaire, northern Angola, and West Africa; Kuba textiles; beadwork from West Africa and Zaire; and Ethiopian crosses.
Arts of Asia and the Pacific: Collections hold Japanese paintings, sculp