Black Art: A Cultural History: (World of Art)

“Excellent artists’ profiles, lots of reproductions, and illuminating and original discussions of social and cultural contexts of African American art.”― Booklist . The African diaspora―a direct result of the transatlantic slave trade and Western colonialism―generated a wide array of artistic achievements in the past century, from blues to reggae, from the paintings of Henry Ossawa Tanner to the video installations of Keith Piper. Richard Powell’s study concentrates on the works of art themselves and on how these works, created during a time of major social upheaval and transformation, use black culture as both subject and context.

Placing its emphasis on black cultural themes rather than on black racial identity, this groundbreaking book is an important exploration of the visual representations of black culture throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first.