link in the system facilitating artwork traffic between buildings so that artwork could be received and serviced in the Hamilton Building and transported to and from the Ponti building's galleries without exiting the protective environment of the museum. Collections The Denver Art Museum has nine curatorial departments: African Art; Architecture and Design; Art of the Ancient Americas; Asian Art; Modern and Contemporary; Native Arts (African, American Indian and Oceanic); New World (pre-Columbian and Spanish Colonial); Painting and Sculpture (European and American); Photography; Western Art; and Textile Art and Fashion. African Art The collection of African art is made up of roughly 1,000 pieces, mostly from the 19th and 20th centuries. It includes many rare works in sculpture, textiles, jewelry, painting, printmaking, and drawings. While a majority of their collection focuses on west African works, there are pieces from many regions and mediums, such as wood, metals, fibers, terra cotta, and mixed media compositions. Art of the Ancient Americas The museum's Ancient Americas collection covers over four thousand years of art, including historic works from peoples and communities throughout Mesoamerica, Central and South America, and the Caribbean and Southwestern United States. The department was formed in 1968, and is known for its collection of Central American ceramics, jade, and stone sculpture. Architecture & Design The Denver Art Museum's Architecture, Design and Graphics department was founded in 1990 by former director Lewis I. Sharp. The collection has concentrations in areas including Italian design from the 1960s and 1970s, American graphic design from the 1950s to the present day, post-World War II furniture and product design in America and western Europe and contemporary western European and Japanese design. Asian Art The museum's Asian art collection includes galleries devoted to the arts of India, China, Japan and Southwestern Asia, as well as works from Tibet, Nepal and Southeast Asia. The collection, which originated in 1915 with a donation of Chinese and Japanese art objects, spans a period from the fourth millennium B.C. to the present. European & American Art Before 1900 The Denver Art Museum began receiving significant examples of European from the 1930s with Horace Havemyer's donations of works by Corot, Courbet, and Millet and seven others. From 1932 onwards, funds from the Helen Dill Bequest enabled the museum to acquire works by Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, Pierre-Auguste Renoir as well as paintings by American artists Thomas Hart Benton, Winslow Homer,