This thesis aims to analyse acquisitions of Brazilian art by public museums in the UK in order to investigate the underlying factors and networks influencing museums institutional decisions when acquiring artworks from countries that have a history of being underrepresented within collections in Western museums and the history of art narrative more broadly, such as Brazil. More specifically, my research focuses on the networks and actors involved in the process of acquisitions. Considering the museums as western/colonial institution (Mignolo 2013) and a machine of knowledge production, my analysis can contribute for broadening up art historical narratives. Museums have played – and still do – an important role in defining the art canon and in writing the history of art (Knell 2018; Langfeld 2018). By identifying the agents and networks involved in the process of acquisitions and paying attention to the interactions of these relations (Callon & Latour, 1981), I propose a model of analysis to reflect on the power relations built by these networks. In other words, as museums produce knowledge through the artworks they collect, knowing the actors involved in the process of acquisition permit us to reflect on how the narrative of art history can be expanded.

This research is innovative and ground-breaking, as it fills in a research gap of the study on museums’ acquisitions in the UK, in general, and the Brazilian case, in particular. The collecting practices of Brazilian art in the UK has never been researched to the depth proposed here – for instance, I have carried out a survey with over 500 public institutions in the UK to ask about their Brazilian art holdings, which resulted in a database with around 1500 objects – the first time such survey has been produced. Moreover, the few studies on the motivations behind museums’ acquisitions refer, for instance, to reports commissioned by organisations such as the Art Fund, which is the UK national fundraising charity for art. (Art Fund, 2017, 2018). Beyond questions related to funding, it is fundamental for museums to consider acquisition in relation to the debate around decolonising the museum, to which this research project also hope to contribute.