Savannah African Art Museum

Thanks to our guide Jane, I had a wonderful time exploring for about an hour. It was so fun and fascinating! She knew so much about the exhibits — their meanings, when they were made, and more — and answered all my questions kindly. (I’m Korean and not very fluent in English, but she spoke clearly and slowly, which made it easy for me to understand.) Thank you so much! I highly recommend this experience!

Savannah African Art Museum is a true gem in Savannah. We bring our Scribble Art Studio Summer Campers to sketch the sculptures. Students observe the beautiful forms and learn about the intention and meaning within these incredible pieces that can also teach them about themselves. The staff is gracious and generous of knowledge!!

Wonderful artifacts inside the museum, the lady doing the tour explained and answered all questions with great knowledge! Would definitely recommend checking it out.

This was a wonderful tour. Jane provided wonderful stories to go along with some of the pieces. Honestly I wish the tour was longer to hear more of the stories behind the art. Would recommend to anyone who likes African art and a little history.

Wonderful experience- the tour guides were friendly & very well-versed on each exhibit. Love the mission here & the work they’re doing for the arts & community! Great place.

Our tour guide was amazing and very knowledgeable. The African art is absolutely amazing and most of the art comes with QR codes so that you can learn beyond the tour. Call and set up a tour so you aren’t waiting. Would definitely recommend, it’s free but donations are welcomed. Tip/donate a little because it goes a long way.

This was a wonderful experience for my students as a field trip!!! Ms. Alisha was an excellent guide and patient with us all. The stories, history, artifacts are phenomenal!!! I highly recommend this place for a visit as a field trip or just to go.

Amazing historical artifacts!! Definitely a great place to visit, especially if you're a local. We have so many hidden gems in this great city of ours. The tours are free, but please consider making a donation. No matter how small, it all helps.

When you come to Savannah, be prepared to indulge into rich African culture. Forget about the typical ghost tours and stop into a local art museum, like this one. When you arrive here, it's inside of what was a house converted into a museum where they offer guided tours that last about 45 minutes or so. We were blessed with a tour guide (I believe her name was Lisa) who was very knowledgeable and open to all of our questions. She even informed us she donated her kente cloth to the museum. It was nice that our guide was very versed and shared her story as she has a place in Ghana.They work with a lot of the SCAD students and look to them for improvements. The art pieces and sculptures are beautiful and just give you an insight to our ancestors from Africa and the experiences and stories they tell. One thing I don't like is that when I asked about the art and how it was collected - it was part of the owner's collection and fascination with Central & West African pieces, even though he's never visited the countries themselves. I will say looking past that, being able to take in that their mission is to provide engaging experiences that educate and start conversations was a winner for me. Larissa at the guest services - was amazing. Being greeted by her and conversing with her, I wish her the best in her future endeavors with her studies at SCAD and art career. The admission is free, however they do ask for donations as it is a non profit. Make time to stop into this museum for a wealth of knowledge and its cultural experience!

This museum is underrated. I've been to the Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art, but I found the collection here more distinctive and engaging. Moreover, it is also free, and is embedded in a splendid looking residential corner building with its own parking. Their model of visitation is a little odd as they require you to stick with a tour guide and they will go in waves on the half hour. They seemed rather confused about what they were doing, as I arrived on the half hour but was shunted off to a separate building with a somewhat reluctant guide to stall. This was no great loss, however, because the terra cotta items in this annex did prove intriguing. After they got their tour schedule straight, I was given a new tour guide and other people joined the gathering. It would be a struggle to get even ten people into these rooms, and the crowd approached that. My new tour guide was very oriented around Q&A, and received a ton of very detailed questions from myself and others. He didn't know all the answers, but he certainly had plenty of information and the discussion increased my appreciation of artifacts that otherwise wouldn't have been the easiest to connect with. I note that their schedule makes it seems like you'd spend half an hour viewing one collection (West Africa) and another half an hour viewing another collection (Central Africa) on the top floor. In reality, I spent an hour and a half there and still didn't see the upstairs. From my perspective, this is less a disappointment and more a reason to come back.

We stumbled upon this place after having an amazing lunch at the vault, and despite the rain that day wanted to continue to explore Savannah. So we took a walk over here to check it out. We learned that this is not as much of a museum as it is a collection of someone's private items. The collection got too big for their home so they moved into this space. You are not able to walk around on your own you are a part of a guided tour. I don't recall our tour guides name, but she introduced herself and immediately told us that she was not very knowledgeable about many elements of the collection, and she would do her best to answer our questions. Another tour guide popped in a couple of times, and we very much appreciated her knowledge and energy. I wish we would've had her for the entire tour. The items are interesting to see. The stories are interesting to hear. They ask for a donation, and we chose not to given that this is clearly the collection of someone who is very financially well off and probably doesn't need the public's donations to maintain the collection of the home that it's in.

I came here a few week ago while visiting Savannah from Dallas. I really enjoyed the sculptures and artifacts at this museum. This is a very well-preserved and vast collection. Our tour guide was very knowledgeable and friendly. The tour took about an hour to go through and the museum has free admission and a private parking lot! I really enjoyed my visit to this museum and highly recommend it!

I arrived about 3:22pm and I was advised that the next tour started at 3:30pm and that I could wait in the main area. Our tour guide met the group promptly... She was very attentive, knowledgeable and openly answered each question members of the group had !

This was a great find while visiting Savannah on a early Saturday morning. Make sure you check the time, they do have plenty of free parking. They are not far from the downtown area close to all the attractions. When I say beautiful and phenomenal, I mean you cant get any better than this free museum. There is a tip container close to the front door, its worth it! Savannah has a very large AAM population which is tied to the nation. The docent is really knowledgeable and knows his stuff. I aint gonna lie I was in information overload...I love any museum that helps me have a better understanding of my history. You need at least 3hrs, I could have stayed longer, but time didn't permit. The staff was very helpful during my visit. The artifacts are from all over Africa. There was so much to see and read, I did take a few pics for memories and to share. There are two floors with quite a few rooms to wander around in with the guide. They do have a gift shop in another bldg. outside which has art room upstairs. I didn't have time but they were offering a free class the weekend I visited. I would check their website and Facebook page before you go for events. I will most definitely visit again and spend longer. Yes, I highly recommend this museum!!

This place was great. I learned so much about the African culture. There are two tours, western and central Africa. Our tour guide, Connie was very knowledgeable. She was very patient and let you ask as many questions as you like.There is a lot of things for you to see. A big attraction to museum admission is FREE! It is worth your time

I gave my review on Yelp and now on Facebook. On 2/19/22 at 11:00, I attended the "Creating with Cowries: Wearable Art 2:0 event, and it was amazing! Also, I participated in the 1:00 pm West African tour, and it also was excellent! Thanks to Lisa, Billie, and Anita As a Savannah native, it was a pleasure to visit the museum for the first time.

We had a great visit at the museum. They have a large and diverse collection, and we had a friendly guide to walk us through the Central African rooms.

This was a very interesting and insightful visit to the Savannah African Art Museum. This new museum displays art from twenty-two African countries throughout its two levels. A visit to this museum is truly personal, as all visitors receive a guided tour from one of the museum volunteers. Our guide informed us all of the pieces in the museum were purchased by local businessperson Don Kole, who also purchased the building to display the art. The building currently displays about sixty percent of his collection. The collection is very large and extensive, and one can easily spend one or two hours in this museum. Our tour guide explained the meaning and purpose of many the artifacts, in addition to telling us interesting background stories to explain the origin of the art. There is no cost to view the collection, and it is an enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours in Savannah.

As Jennie H. on here said, "phenomenal". Seriously. The museum is housed in an old house in a slightly out-of-the-way part of town (though not really that hard to get to at all from downtown) and I wasn't sure exactly what to expect. Indeed, the museum went far above and beyond anything I could have hoped for: a consummate, well-curated collection of traditional African art objects from a variety of cultures. Our tour was guided by Dr. Edwin Johnson, a scholar of African art and former professor at the Savannah College of Art and Design of art history. Thus, the quality of the tour was as good or better than you'd get at any of the nation's major art museums. And this at a free museum in a small city? Very impressive. The artwork on display included some amazing bronze figures, masks, carved wood objects, beadwork, and much more. I was not really expecting the sheer depth nor scope of the work they had here, and yet apparent around 40 percent of the collect still is in storage and not yet on display, I presume due to finding the space to house it all. While the building is large and the rooms of this old house have been very well converted into gallery spaces with appropriate lighting, there doesn't seem to be much space free to spare. Nothing seems crowded, but none of the gallery spaces are wanting for artifacts, either. Savannah has a large African-American population and one tied to the very founding of the state and nation. It seems fitting that we also have a museum of traditional African art located here, because while this collection should appeal to everyone, I really hope that the ready accessibility may allow people who may not typically travel to larger cities or when they do seek out this type of collection. I hope the location will encourage other arts-minded projects for Savannah. The city is very fortunate not only to have this collection, but that it has been so well-curated, also. It should also be a stop for tourists to Savannah: much of what tourists see in Savannah's historic homes and museums is still, honestly, the work of white men long ago. And yet African-Americans are the majority of the citizenship of the city today and have long played a crucial, often not-acknowledged, role here. Seeing their roots and the diversity and majesty thereof is beneficial to us all.

In a word, phenomenal. The amount and scope of objects on display is almost overwhelming at first but is actually mindfully curated by region/theme over the space of two floors and multiple rooms. The artworks (masks, instruments, furniture, etc) are beautifully displayed in a way that really lets you examine them closely and get a finer appreciation for the craftsmanship that went into creating them. The staff is knowledgeable and friendly and give guided tours based on specific regions and pieces. They literally only opened this month and already do a commendable job with their knowledge of the collection (which is apparently 60% larger than had been displayed in the museum's initial location!) The museum is definitely off the beaten path if you're visiting town and just sticking to the Historic District, but if you want to see art in Savannah that isn't just watercolors of marshes at sunset, grab an Uber and GO!

This is a great museum. Looks small from the outside, but there were so many beautiful pieces of art. Very knowledgeable guide took us around and provided so many details to enhance the experience. Maybe the best spent hour of our family vacation.

Great tour with a knowledgeable docent who clearly loves his chosen field. Tour ran longer than the time we were told and I do believe it was because of questions guests had. Staff was helpful and respectful and the museum was filled with different kinds of art. I learned more than I expected to that day. Definitely recommend if you have time in Savannah and wear comfortable shoes for long standing periods and limited seating during tours.

Beautiful museum. Good tours. Beware. As of the middle of March this museum still has a mandatory mask mandate even though that mandate has been lifted throughout the city. The masks that they hand out have been proven to have no effect on reducing the spread of Covid.

This was a great museum with lots of historical African art downstairs and upstairs. Plenty of parking and a good thing to do on a Saturday morning