Product Description
The art of the Fang, the BaTeke, the BaKota, and other African peoples is extraordinarily vigorous and shows a brilliant sense of form. The substantial aesthetic impact that their works have had on the development of twentieth-century Western art—on Picasso, Derain, Braque, and Modigliani, among others—continues to this day.This classic study reveals the astonishing variety and expressive power of the art of a continent that contains more distinct peoples and cultures than any other. The revised edition has been updated throughout, incorporating recent research and additional illustrations, plus a new chapter and extended bibliography. It remains an invaluable resource for students and for anyone interested in African art. 291 illustrations, 88 in color. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

African art paperback
This was a gift so I haven't actually read it but I was slightly disappointed that it was an older version.

Fabulous
It is well known that Picasso was heavily influenced by African Art.
And before him, the French cubism school with its leader Georges Braque borrowed its forms and shapes from drawings on African caves walls.
However a major distinction in the artistic expression of French cubism and ethnic African primitive art remained self-explanatory and a dividing screen between an ornamental European art and a pure rudimentary African art so true to its nature.
African art does not embellish a theme. It evolves around it and expresses it in honest naïveté.
A polished European art is an ornamental expression.
African art is traditions and raw feelings expressed in utmost honesty.
You will understand its importance in the galleries of breathtaking illustrations in the book.
The teacher will widen his knowledge, and the student will expand his appreciation of African arts by reading this book.

The book is a mosaic of colors, the birth of unspoiled art expression, and a legacy of uncorrupted primitive beauty that transcended the dark caves of Africa.

African Art in a detailed sense
A very British take on the African culture. Detailed Oriented and exceptional information followed by great illustrations and a realm of photographs to break up the text. A careful read is recommended to fully understand the text due to the fact that it is a higher level read.

Very nice book
This book includes an impressive description of all the african arts with some examples quite dificult to find in other books.

For me is a must for all lovers of african art.

Frank is Frankly Extensive on African Art

This is one of the best and highly extensive books on African Art.I enjoyed it from beginning to end.The content describing the motifs, dewellings, statues, sculptures and costumes of the African People are quite impressive.

Frank Willett has done his homework but more importantly he has filled every page full of roaring images that speak to the traditions and the images of the African people.This book serves to give us a rapid, excellerated peek into the past.It was very revealing in the geometric structure of the objects, the color, rhythums, shapes, forms and symbolisim.Whether you are a history teacher, student, business person or artist you'll find this book very handy and informing.

Your Servant,Deremiah, *CPE ... Read more

Product Description
From its origins in early 18th century slave communities to the end of the 20th century, African-American art has made a vital contribution to the art of the United States. This book provides a major reassessment of the subject, setting the art in the context of the African-American experience. 70 color illustrations. 5 linecuts. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

fabulous, and I got to meet her!
This is a good introductory resource to African-American art.Patton fits a lot of history in a small book.
Generally the Oxford series are pretty fantastic to begin with, so you can't go wrong.

Plus, I got to meet her. She is very nice and knowledgeable. I got a chance to hear her speak at a conference.

Not a fan of the arts
I really want to appreciate the arts, but this book doesn't help. Too much race-baiting, not enough pictures, and overall very boring. Only reason I got it was cuz it was for school.

Great resource and easy to read
Sharon Patton does a wonderful job placing African-American art and artist within the contex of the time in which it was made.She shows how people of color were part of all the art movements and what the contributions were.The reproductions are high quality and the images cover many different mediums.It is easy to read and flows more like a story of art instead of a dry lecture. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

Another fine contribution to a fascinating subject
This book is more proof that there is a current Zeitgeist which wants to shed more light on the relationship between "primitive" art and the moderns, a phenomenon that had been forgotten and marginalized for too long. It is difficult to assess today what an impact the native arts of Africa and Oceania had on artists in the early 20th Century, and how and why they could use these esthetic concepts as inspiration and as subversive tools to rock the Status Quo, but this book admirably enlightens and broadens the view on this important step in the evolution of modern art.

Man Ray and African Art
Man Ray, African Art, and the Modernist Lens, by Wendy Grossman, is not your typical museum exhibition catalogue. Written to accompany a traveling exhibition that opened in Washington at the Phillips Colleciton, this book is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in the history of photography and of new interpretations of "primitivism." Carefully studying photographs of African art--not just by Man Ray but by a host of photographers, many unexpected ones--Grossman places these photographs in the context of modernism. Just as objects from beyond Europe made their way into modernist circles, so, too, did photography, and Grossman draws these parallels convincingly. Especially valuable is the attention Grossman pays to the African objects that drew the photographers' interest. Instead of simply lumping them together as "other," she studies their meaning, their provenance, and why they would have drawn the attention they did at a particular time. A concordance of the objects in the photographs, edited by Letty Wilson Bonnell, is provided at the back of the book to offer further information about the objects. Clearly written and persuasively argued, this book is accessible to expert and layperson alike. This is one of those exhibition catalogues that will live on long after the last photograph or object is shipped back to its lender. ... Read more

Product Description
Contemporary African Art Since 1980 is the first major survey of the work of contemporary African artists from diverse situations, locations, and generations who work either in or outside of Africa, but whose practices engage and occupy the social and cultural complexities of the continent since the past 30 years. Its frame of analysis is absorbed withhistorical transitions: from the end of the postcolonial utopias of the sixties during the 1980s to the geopolitical, economic,technological, and cultural shifts incited by globalization. This book is both narrower in focus in the periods it reflects on, and specific in the ground it covers. It begins by addressing the tumultuous landscape of contemporary Africa, examining landmarks and narratives, exploring divergent systems of representation, and interrogating the ways artists have responded to change and have incorporated new aesthetic principles and artistic concepts, images and imaginaries to deal with such changes.Organized in chronological order, the book covers all major artistic mediums: painting, sculpture, photography, film, video, installation, drawing,collage. It also covers aesthetic forms and genres, from conceptual to formalist, abstract to figurative practices. Moving between discursive and theoretical registers, the principal questions the book analyzes are: what and when is contemporary African art? Who might be included in the framing of such a conceptual identity? It also addresses the question of globalization and contemporary African art.
The book thus provides an occasion to examine through close reading and visual analysis how artistic concerns produce major themes. It periodizes and cross references artistic sensibilities in order to elicit multiple conceptual relationships, as well as breaks with prevailing binaries of center and periphery, vernacular and academic, urban and non-urban forms, indigenous and diasporic models of identification. In order to theorize how these concerns have been formulated in artistic terms and their creative consequences Contemporary African Art Since 1980 examines a range of ideas, concepts and issues that have shaped the work and practice of African artists within an international and global framework. It traces the shifts from earlier modernist strategies of the sixties and seventies after the period of decolonization, and the rise of pan-African nationalism, to the postcolonial representations of critique and satire that evolved from the 1980s, to the postmodernist irony of the 1990s, and to the globalist strategies of the 21st century.
The main claim of this book is that contemporary African art can be best understood by examining the tension between the period of great political changes of the era of decolonization that enabled new and exciting imaginations of the future to be formulated, and the slow, skeptical, and social decline marked by the era of neo-liberalism and Structural Adjustment programs of the 1980s. These issues are addressed in chapters covering the themes of "Politics, Culture, Critique," "Memory and Archive," "Abstraction, Figuration and Subjectivity," and "The Body, Gender and Sexuality." In addition, the book employs sidebars to provide brief and incisive accounts of and commentaries on important contemporary political, economic and cultural events, and on exhibitions, biennales, workshops, artist groups and more. Rather than a comprehensive survey, this richly illustrated book presents examples of ambitious and important work by more than 160 African artists since the last 30 years. This list includes Georges Adeagbo Tayo Adenaike, Ghada Amer, El Anatsui, Kader Attia, Luis Basto, Candice Breitz, Moustapha Dime, Marlene Dumas, Victor Ekpuk, Samuel Fosso, Jak Katarikawe, William Kentridge, Rachid Koraichi, Mona Mazouk, Julie Mehretu, Nandipha Mntambo, Hassan Musa, Donald Odita, Iba Ndiaye, Richard Onyango, Ibrahim El Salahi, Issa Samb, Cheri Samba, Ousmane Sembene, Yinka Shonibare, Barthelemy Toguo, Obiora Udechukwu, and Sue Williamson.
Okwui Enwezor, a leading curator and scholar of contemporary art, is the Dean of Academic Affairs at the San Francisco Art Institute, and founding publisher and editor of Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art.
Chika Okeke-Agulu is Assistant Professor of Art and Archeology and African American Studies at Princeton University, and editor of Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art. ... Read more

Product Description
With examples from every region of the continent, "Handmade in Africa" demonstrates the wide variety of African art. The splendid art of the African peoples occupies an unusual place in the concert of world cultures. It is anything but 'primitive', being characterized rather by a highly developed sense of design - whether it's masks, ancestral figures, ceramics, basketry, metalwork, or weapons. The items in this volume, mostly datable only with difficulty, start with a sculptured head from Nigeria, which may be as old as the 12th century, and extend from a 15th/16th-century salt container from Sierra Leone to the 19th and 20th centuries, to which most of the extant artworks belong.With examples from every region of the continent - from Mali, Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Republic of Congo as well as a dozen other countries including Madagascar and South Africa - this book demonstrates the wide variety of African art, describing the social and religious background without which this art, which today is increasingly threatened with extinction, could not be understood.Each book in Taschen's "Basic Genre Series" features: a detailed introduction with approximately 35 photographs, plus a timeline of the most important events (political, cultural, scientific, etc.) that took place during the time period and a selection of the most important works of the epoch; each is presented on a 2-page spread with a full-page image and, on the facing page, a description/interpretation of the work and brief biography of the artist as well as additional information such as a reference work, portrait of the artist, and/or citations. ... Read more

Product Description
This magnificent volume showcases the
highlights from a world-renowned collection of African textiles, ceramics, jewelry, masks, and figures from more than fifty different cultures.
The Brooklyn Museum was one of the first North American institutions to collect and exhibit African material culture as art rather than artifact. Today the museum's collection numbers more than six thousand pieces and is noted for its artistic quality and educational value, as well as a breadth and depth that would be impossible to achieve today. Major works from all areas of sub-Saharan Africa are included in the collection's vast holdings, while the figurative sculpture and masks of Central Africa constitute its most significant focus. More than 130 of those pieces are featured in this large-format compendium, which includes essays by the museum's emeritus curator of African art and a leading scholar on the subject. Taking readers through a cultural exploration of the continent, the collection encompasses regions from Western Sudan and the southwestern Congo to the Equatorial Forest and southern Africa. Carefully photographed and presented in luminous color, these pieces create a stunning introduction to the rich traditions of African art and culture. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

African Tribal Art Brooklyn Museum
I had a chance to see the exhibition in the book in September 2009. The book color plates do justice to the displayed items. The verbage explaining the items is better than most books. And the preface writeup of the Brooklyn Museum's history is actually interesting. If you get to NYC, take a day and go to Brooklyn to see the exhibit.
BTW I bought the book thru Amazon. A good price for the book. ... Read more

Product Description
Samella Lewis has brought African American Art and Artists fully up to date in this revised and expanded edition. The book now looks at the works and lives of artists from the eighteenth century to the present, including new work in traditional media as well as in installation art, mixed media, and digital/computer art. Mary Jane Hewitt, an author, curator, and longtime friend of Samella Lewis's, has written an introduction to the new edition. Generously and handsomely illustrated, the book continues to reveal the rich legacy of work by African American artists, whose art is now included in the permanent collections of national and international museums as well as in major private collections. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Good, cheap textbook
Is an older edition but is basically the same as the newest edition being used in my African American Art History class. Condition was as described by seller.

African American Art and Artists, Revised and Expanded Edition
Excellent book! It has pictures and a bio on todays black artists. My favorite would have to be Ben Jones, my old college professor! lol www.Gallery07002.com

A Commendable Documentation of African-American Art
Samella Lewis has updated and further developed her definitive guide on African-American Art.As a former student instructed on the subject with her first edition of this book as our class text, I can definitively say that this book provides a solid understanding of the different art movements and a variety of examples of the works.Also from the perspective of a young museum professional who has worked with African-American art collections, I highly recommend this volume as a foundation of basic knowledge on the subject. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

Correction Needed to review offered by Amazon
This is a wonderful book about Genevieve Macmillan's passionate collection of African and Oceanic art. The pictures as well as the accompanying stories are informative. Please correct the review offered by Amazon. It obviously belongs to another book.

A powerful survey
MATERIAL JOURNEYS is a strong pick for any college-level art library serious about African or Oceanic art representations. This catalogue of holdings comes from the Genevieve McMillan Collection and supplements a study of how African and oceanic arts were brought to Europe with the items in the McMillan Collection, using the collection as a foundation for examining collection strategies as a whole. Any interested in museum holdings, the arts, and African and Oceanic arts in particular will find it a powerful survey embracing many modern art debates, from issues of authenticity to the social, political and commercial forces underlying holding choices.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch ... Read more

Product Description
This book focuses on the work of African American artists during the Depression and the war years (1929-1945), when government-sponsored programs such as the WPA led to a general resurgence in artistic production throughout the United States.

The catalogue features the work of Robert Blackburn, Raymond Steth, Horace Woodroff, and Dox Trash, among others, with a smaller selection of paintings and watercolors by such notable artists as Horace Pippin, Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence, and Bill Traylor.Included are essays on the work in its cultural context and on printmaking techniques. Most of the works in this volume are recent acquisitions of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and have not been previously published. ... Read more

Product Description
Although Herman Melville's masterworks Moby-Dick and Benito Cereno have long been the subject of vigorous scholarly examination, the impact of African culture on these works has received surprisingly little critical attention. Presenting a groundbreaking reappraisal of these two powerful pieces of fiction, Sterling Stuckey reveals how African customs and rituals heavily influenced one of America's greatest novelists.

The Melville that emerges in this innovative, intertextual study is one profoundly shaped by the vibrant African-influenced music and dance culture of nineteenth-century America. Drawing on extensive research, Stuckey reveals how celebrations of African culture by black Americans, such as the Pinkster festival and the Ring Shout dance form, permeated Melville's environs during his formative years and found their way into his finest fiction. Also demonstrated is the extent to which the author of Moby-Dick is indebted to Frederick Douglass's depiction of music, especially the blues, in his classic slave narrative. Connections between Melville's work and African culture are also extended beyond America to the African continent itself. With readings of hitherto unexplored chapters in Delano's Voyages and Travels in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres and other nonfiction sources--such as Joseph Dupuis's Journal of a Residence in Ashantee --Stuckey links Benito Cereno and Moby-Dick , pinpointing the sources from which Melville drew to fashion major characters that appear aboard both the Pequod and the San Dominick .

Combining inventive literary and historical analysis, Stuckey shows how myriad aspects of African culture coalesced to create the unique vision conveyed in Moby-Dick and Benito Cereno. Ultimately, African Culture and Melville's Art provides a wealth of insight into the novelist's expressive power and the development of his distinct cross-cultural aesthetic. ... Read more

Product Description
Through the prism of America's most enduring African-inspired art form, the Lowcountry basket, Grass Roots guides readers across 300 years of American and African history. In scholarly essays and beautiful photographs, Grass Roots follows the coiled basket along its transformation on two continents from a simple farm tool once used for processing grain to a work of art and a central symbol of African and African American identity. Featuring images of the stunning work of contemporary basket makers from South Carolina to South Africa, as well as historic photographs that document the artistic heritage of the southern United States, Grass Roots appears at a moment when public recognition of the Gullah/Geechee heritage is encouraging a reexamination of Africa's contribution to American civilization.

Working with basket makers from Charleston and Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, historian Dale Rosengarten has been studying African-American baskets for over 20 years and brings her research up-to-date with interviews of artists and the results of recent historical inquiry. Anthropologist Enid Schildkrout draws on her research in West Africa and museum collections around the world to explore the African antecedents of Lowcountry basketry. Geographer Judith A. Carney discusses the origins of rice in Africa and reveals how enslaved Africans brought to America not only rice seeds but, just as important, the technical know-how that turned southern coastal forests and swamps into incredibly profitable rice plantations. Historian Peter H. Wood discusses the many skills that enslaved Africans contributed to the settlement of the Old South and at the same time used to resist the conditions of their servitude. John Michael Vlach, a leading authority on African American folk art, discusses the history of visual depictions of plantation life. Fath Davis Ruffins, a specialist on the imagery of popular culture, sheds light on the history embedded in old photographs of African Americans in the Charleston area. Cultural historian Jessica B. Harris explores the tradition of rice in American cooking and the enduring African influences in the southern kitchen. Anthropologist and art historian Sandra Klopper sketches the history of coiled basketry in South Africa, illuminating its evolution from utilitarian craft to fine art, parallel to developments in America. Anthropologist J. Lorand Matory traces the changing meanings of Gullah/Geechee identity and discusses its appearance as a significant force on the American cultural scene today. ... Read more

Product Description
The marvelous achievements of black African artists over thousands of years are revealed and superbly portrayed in this book. The earliest pieces date from the beginning of the first millennium, the most recent from the early twentieth century before the commercial production of art for the tourist trade. All were made by Africans for their own use.

Jean-Baptiste Bacquart has divided Africa south of the Sahara into forty-nine cultural areas. Each section studies the most important tribe within that area, surveying its social and political structures as well as its artistic production. The art is analyzed according to type—in most instances masks, statues, and everyday objects such as utensils, furniture, and jewelry. When appropriate, further information on artistically related tribes is provided. Each section contains lavishly presented color photographs of all the major object types, documentary black-and-white illustrations, and its own bibliography.

A detailed reference section with information on key collections open to the public and a glossary completes this invaluable publication, the only one to present the entire range of black African art in accessible form. 865 illustrations and photographs, 195 in color. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

dee's opinion
The Tribal Arts of Africa by Jean-Baptiste Bacquart
The subtitle "Surveying Africa's Artistic Geography" tells the story.

The book has 249 pages, plus the cover, in which there are 865 pictures, 195 are in color. The pages are museum quality. It is a gorgeous book,though the cover is glued on but the pages are well sewn together.

It covers tribes from the coast and inland of West Africa, plus the countries of Nigeria, Cameroom, Gabon, Zaire and East and South Africa.
The collection of photos are beautifully displayed both in color as well as those in black and white. Each section of sculpture begins with the history of the tribes covered. This book in content though not on jewelry but on sculpture stands beside "Africa Adorned".

This book can hold an honored place in any art library or sit on any coffee table.It is a keeper.

Excellent introduction to African masks
Excellent overview for collectors and amateurs alike. A great book with which to begin a library of African art.

The Tribal Arts of Africa
Excellent Book!!! Layed out perfectly to help people understand each & every aspect of tribal art. Describes museum pieces in detail, where they were from, why they were made. Excellent book for beginners or advanced. Well written book. I highly recomend if your studing African art or if it is just a hobbie. Knowledge is power.

Pleasantly surprised, great value
My husband and I recently purchased a mask at an African and Caribbean festival.We loved the mask, and it definitely found its home over our fireplace.However, the vendor only could tell us that the mask was from Mali.With a desire to learn about our mask (which sports some unusual features) I decided to purchase a book, with no idea whether or not information about my mask would be included.I browsed on Amazon and located this book.

I was very pleasantly surprised, not only was our mask in the book, but the book contained beautiful photos and histories of masks from every region in Africa.Although it is a paperback, it is sturdy, and the glossy photos are stunning.We will definitely use it, to guide us in future purchases.

Fell to pieces!
My paperback copy fell to pieces after ten days! It is full of nice photographs but when the individual pages are lying in a chaotic heap on the floor it hardly matters how pretty the pictures are or how intelligent the text is, does it? ... Read more

Product Description
African art -- with its powerful forms, complex symbolism, and formal inventiveness -- has only recently come to be recognized as one of the great artistic traditions of mankind. This rich tradition is showcased here in a remarkable selection of outstanding works. Nearly 1,600 objects are illustrated, each accompanied by scholarly information on style, usage, meaning, and cultural origin. Featured individually by section are the styles of Western Sudan, the West African Coastal Region, West Central Africa, Central Africa, and Eastern and Southern Africa. A thought-provoking introduction helps readers understand the significance of African art as a form of human creative expression, its relationships to contemporary Western art, and the controversies surrounding it in the world's museums. Newcomers to the field as well as professionals will find many questions answered in the text and captions. FThis comprehensive survey of some 230 styles of African art is an essential reference for scholars, teachers, students, curators, collectors, and dealers. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Black and white reference
This is not a coffee table book in that there are no pretty full page colour pictures - everything is in black and white and generally quite small. However, for anyone familiar with African art who wants an exhaustive catalogue of the range of works available, this is an invaluable book - luckily, I had seen it in a book shop, so I knew what I was getting. Moreover, many of the pieces are major works or at least of significant aesthetic quality, which cannot be said of most published groupings of African art. Just make sure this is what you are looking for. Now, a full color version of this in two volumes with full page reproductions, that would be worth waiting for. ... Read more

Product Description
Africa's religious and artistic traditions constitute a primary example of its intellectual and cultural vitality. Artistic works play a vital role - especially where oral traditions dominate - in communicating ideas about the relationship between the hum ... Read more

Product Description
This new history of over 5,000 years of African art reveals its true diversity for the first time. Challenging centuries of misconceptions that have obscured the sophisticated nature of African art, Garlake focuses on seven key regions--southern Africa, Nubia, Aksum, the Niger River, West Africa, Great Zimbabwe, and the East African coast--treating each in detail and setting them in their social and historical context. Garlake is long familiar with and has extensive practical experience of both the archaeology and the art history of Africa. Using the latest research and archaeological findings, he offers exciting new insights into the works native to these areas, and he also puts forth new interpretations of several key cultures and monuments. Acknowledging the universal allure of the African art object, this stunning book helps us to understand more about the ways in which this art was produced, used, and received. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Beautiful Experience
This book is a very well rounded and well written review of the art and architecture of Africa.It is very eye opening about the artistic abilities of these ancient people.It even goes beyond what we know about their construction.You find that awe-inspiring palaces were not confined to Egypt and the rest of North Africa, but advanced societies had flourished apart from the rest of the world.I really don't want to give away any of the details, but you won't regret the purchase of this book.

Early Art and Architecture of Africa by peter garlake
book was in good condition well packed ... Read more

Product Description
It was like entering an obscure art gallery and stumbling across a Renoir. “That was how British photographer David Coulson described for People magazine the wonder and astonishment he experienced upon first gazing at an engraving of two majestic 20-foot-tall giraffes carved into stone in Niger’s Aïr Mountains—among the largest prehistoric engravings ever found. Readers will share his awe in the pages of this breathtaking volume, the first comprehensive illustrated book on Africa’s rock art from prehistoric times to the 20th century.

Covering the entire continent, this magnificently illustrated book contains more than 200 full-color photographs of Africa’s rock art, together with historical and interpretive analysis. Coulson and former museum director Alec Campbell scoured the remotest areas of Africa in their efforts to raise public awareness of the variety, importance, and frailty of these extraordinary works, many of which are endangered by erosion, theft, and vandalism. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A Masterpiece
This impressive book by photographer David Coulson and co-author Alec Campbell is a comprehensive study of the rock paintings and engravings of the African continent.

Chapter I deals with the history and peoples of Africa, with special chapters on the Bushmen and Bantu-speaking people. Chapter II is a discussion of rock art and speculations on who the artists were, including the latest research.

Chapter III explores the styles, subject matter and the specific rock art sites, whilst Cheaper IV is devoted to dating. Chapter V deals with Southern Africa under heading for Zimbabwe, Namibia, the southwestern Cape, the Maluti and Drakensberg mountains, the inland plateau and the Tsodilo hills.

The following two chapters are devoted to Eastern and Northern Africa respectively, whilst Chapter VIII discusses the geometric designs and the style called Late White paintings. Chapter IX considers aspects of preservation and the future of Africa's rock art.

The book contains 400 full colour photographs and line drawings plus 7 maps. These photographs also include living people and animals. The maps depict Africa, the language groups, African peoples, the distribution of rock art on the continent, and the specific distribution in Southern, Eastern and Northern Africa respectively.

This classic work concludes with a glossary, bibliography and index. I would also like to recommend the books The Cave Of Altamira, edited by Antonio Beltran, and The Mind In The Cave by Lewis-Williams.

With 200 examples of David Coulson's color photography
Alec Campbell's African Rock Art: Paintings And Engravings On Stone, superbly and profusely illustrated with more than two hundred examples of David Coulson's color photography,spectacularly and informatively showcases Africa's rock art with examples drawn from the entire continent. The text provides the reader with an authoritative and "reader friendly" historical and interpretative analysis. Alec Campbell draws upon his many years of experience as the founder and former director of the "National Museum of Botswana", and is a resident of the area. David Coulson is founder and chairman of the "Trust for African Rock Art" and combines his special expertise with skills as a photography to provide a visual record of outstanding works, many of which are now endangered by erosion, theft, and vandalism. African Rock Art is an impressive and much appreciated addition to personal, academic and community library African art history and cultural studies collections. ... Read more

Product Description
Based on extensive research in West Africa, Christopher Steiner's book presents a richly detailed description of the economic networks that transfer art objects from their site of use and production in Africa to their point of consumption in art galleries and shops throughout Europe and America. In the course of this fascinating transcultural journey, African art acquires different meanings. It means one thing to the rural villagers who create and still use it in ritual and performance, another to the Muslim traders who barter and resell it, and something else to the buyers and collectors in the West who purchase it for investment and display it in their homes. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

outdated
This book was relevant 20 years ago,It has little

to do with today's market in African art.

Excellent introduction to African art and global art trade
This is a wonderful book which introduces the reader to African art in the context of the international market and art trade. As an African art collector, I learned a great deal about the "tricks" of the tradeand the techniques of faking and market pricing. It is also fascinating toread about the lives of those who deal in African art, and how the tradeimpacts their religious convictions, as well as their personal and economicaspirations. ... Read more