"This beautifully illustrated volume highlights all the rich diversity of African cultures through a meaningful selection of masterpieces of traditional African art."--Global Books in Print.

"Informed by the latest scholarship yet written for the general reader, this has been the first comprehensive study to present the arts of Africa in art historical terms. A History of Art in Africa covers all parts of the continent, including Egypt, from prehistory to the present day and includes the art of the African Diaspora. Many aspects of visual culture are given detailed consideration, including sculpture, architecture, and such quintessentially African forms as masquerades, festivals, and personal adornment. The arts of daily life, of royal ceremony, and of state cosmology receive compelling discussions. Throughout, the authors emphasize the cultural contexts in which art is produced and imbued with meanings." "Among the ancient works illustrated are masterpieces in brass, gold, ivory, stone and terracotta. Religious arts serving Islamic and Christian communities are presented, as are fascinating hybrid arts that periodically arose from African interactions with Europe, Asia and the Americas. Twentieth-century arts are explored as part of the vibrancy of modern Africa and as ingenious responses to historical change. 'Twenty-first-century African artists, and artists of the African Diaspora, are presented in the context of changing global economies and new theoretical positions." "This expanded and revised second edition provides a new chapter on African artists working abroad, and five new short essays on cross-cultural topics such as tourist arts, dating methods, and the illicit trade in archaeological artifacts. The illustrations - featuring a vast and rich array of images of artworks, archival and contemporary field photographs, explanatory drawings and plans, and individual objects displayed in museums and in use - have likewise been greatly extended, with many more pictures now shown in color."--BOOK JACKET.

In Africa, women's passion to create is evident during times of peace as well as war, under favorable circumstances as well as the most difficult and dangerous imaginable. Their media of expression can be naturally derived or imported. It can vary from monumental stone sculpture to intricate beadwork, or from painting with mud to oil and acrylic. The passion to decorate is evident in daily life from the designs applied to the smallest clay bowls, to the sturdy mud walls of their compounds where women give birth or see life pass away. These decorations are frequently symbolic and the motifs can please as well as reinforce shared community values. Across the African continent, from Timbuktu, Mali to Harare, Zimbabwe or Asmara, Eritrea, whether women weave, sew, sketch, paint, create fabric applique or stone sculptures, their art work often incorporates the duality of myth and reality as they express their hopes, fears, humor, and frustrations.

This work documents in 60 pages of full colour the most dynamic and exciting artists and their works that have emerged since South Africa s emancipation in 1990. Sue Williamson is an artist herself; Ashraf Jamal is a writer, journalist and playwright.

"In Africa, the materials that are used to make objects of daily and ritual life are profoundly significant. Material is meaning. Material Differences: Art and Identity in Africa examines the different layers of meaning inherent in the material of each object. Many African cultures believe that mineral and organic materials contain supernatural powers that are associated with protection, healing or with leadership. Some of these materials-wood, ivory, stone, clay, or metals such as iron, copper alloys, and gold-are laden with symbolic significance. The exhibition and this publication investigate the numerous factors that lead to the choice of specific materials in the creation of works of art in sub-Saharan Africa." --Google Books.

Having spent a good many years as a researcher of African art, I understand that education is of critical importance. This Encyclopedia is designed to bring benefits of knowledge to students, artists, collectors and for all lovers of African traditional art and culture. Avner Shakarov introduces African art in the context of the peoples who created it. Students and artists will find this Encyclopedia: Art of Africa as a fresh handbook, thought-provoking and a good deal more scholarly than most other writings on African art. African art has taken its place among the great art traditions of the world. It was collected as souvenirs and curios by European travelers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Later, a great deal was written about its influence on Picasso, Matisse, Braque, and other western artists. This book is well researched and studied in the rich heritage of black Africa through its most distinctive form, sculpture, and covers the entire continent. The book contains 95 images of African art, 30 tribal and village photos, 16 drawings and 5 maps to help locate geographically the peoples who created the works of art.

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.