Etta Becker-Donner (born December 5, 1911 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary as Violetta Donner; died 25 September 1975 in Vienna) was an Austrian ethnologist.
Etta Donner studied ethnology and African linguistics at the University of Vienna.
In 1934, the then 22-year-old Donner made her first trip to Liberia,[1] and in 1936 and 1937 she made a second trip.
In 1941, the year of the war, she married the American expert Hans Becker, who was transferred to Chile in 1947 for work. Becker-Donner also changed her research focus to Latin America. After her husband's death in 1948, she returned to Vienna.
In 1954 she undertook her first expedition to Brazil.[2][3][4] She went on further trips to Costa Rica and Guatemala. South American art was the focus. Research trips also took place to China, the US and the Soviet Union. She usually carried out these trips without European travel companions and was usually only with local guides or interpreters.
In 1955 she took over the management of the then independent Ethnological Museum Vienna,[5] which she already knew because she had been employed there as a research assistant from 1938. She was the director of the museum for 20 years[6] and during this time she expanded the area of special exhibitions and events.
But her work also extended into development policy. She was one of the founders of the Latin America Institute in Vienna. She was buried in the Hietzinger Friedhof.[7]
Her daughter is the artist and poet Franka Lechner.