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

Product Description
Black Comedians on Black Comedy is the only up-to-date book to examine African-American humor. Comedian Darryl Littleton traces the history and evolution of "black comedy" in his narrative and through the 125 interviews he conducted with some of the top African-American comedians in the world. Those interviewed include Dick Gregory, Sinbad, Eddie Murphy, Mike Epps, Cedric the Entertainer, Nick Cannon, Bernie Mac, Eddie Griffin, Damon Wayans, Arsenio Hall, Chris Rock, Marla Gibbs, Robert Townsend, and John Witherspoon. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

ok
Not too short and not too long. detailed and specific. it makes sense, informative, and entertaining.

a fantastic book
there is nothing like Black Comedians. I mean without Humor in this Country a Brother would truly be hopeless. through the struggle&all the Ism that went down back in the day&that still is happening now. laughter has always been the Best Medicine&it always hits the spot ten fold. this Book is tight. Interviews,etc... a Fantastic Book. very soulful&RIGHT ON!!

long way from there to here
This book goes through the history of how black comedy became what we know it as today.Eddie Murphy, Sinbad, Cedric the Entertainer, Chris Rock, Damon Wayans...these are all successful black comedians that are common names around US households today.This book tells the stories of those that came before them.This book has wonderful quotes as well as short biographies of various comedians.It's a great read and I highly suggest this book to anyone who finds many of todays African-American comedians funny! ... Read more

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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
The widespread presence of jazz and blues in African American visual art has long been overlooked. The Hearing Eye makes the case for recognizing the music's importance, both as formal template and as explicit subject matter. Moving on from the use of iconic musical figures and motifs in Harlem Renaissance art, this groundbreaking collection explores the more allusive - and elusive - references to jazz and blues in a wide range of mostly contemporary visual artists.

There are scholarly essays on the painters Rose Piper (Graham Lock), Norman Lewis (Sara Wood), Bob Thompson (Richard H. King), Romare Bearden (Robert G. O'Meally, Johannes Völz) and Jean-Michel Basquiat (Robert Farris Thompson), as well an account of early blues advertising art (Paul Oliver) and a discussion of the photographs of Roy DeCarava (Richard Ings). These essays are interspersed with a series of in-depth interviews by Graham Lock, who talks to quilter Michael Cummings and painters Sam Middleton, Wadsworth Jarrell, Joe Overstreet and Ellen Banks about their musical inspirations, and also looks at art's reciprocal effect on music in conversation with saxophonists Marty Ehrlich and Jane Ira Bloom.

With numerous illustrations both in the book and on its companion website, The Hearing Eye reaffirms the significance of a fascinating and dynamic aspect of African American visual art that has been too long neglected. ... Read more

Product Description
In African American Visual Arts Celeste-Marie Bernier introduces readers to the sheer diversity, range, and experimental nature of African American art and artists and considers their relationship to key motifs within black culture and black experience in North America. The book traces the major developments in African American visual culture from its beginnings in the ceramics and textiles of slave artisans to later contributions in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries to the fine arts and abstract expressionism, sculpture, installation art, video art, and computer graphics.

Bernier analyzes the work of twenty-one artists, including Elizabeth Catlett, Jacob Lawrence, William Edmondson, Howardena Pindell, Charles Alston, Romare Bearden, Norman Lewis, Betye Saar, Horace Pippin, and Kara Walker. She highlights key but frequently neglected and little-discussed black artists, situating their works within their specific historical and political contexts. Bernier provides a new understanding of their relationship to fundamental themes of the black experience such as black stereotyping and caricature in mainstream discourse, poverty in the inner city, and the division between the rural and the urban. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Solid, readable reference
There are several references about aspects of African American art. I've enjoyed reading African Americans in the Visual Arts.It's an easy read - not a great deal of jargon or technical artistic phrases. I appreciate the exposure to not just fine artists, painters, film makers, but also to comic strip artists and quilters. Additionally, the book includes a lenghy bibliography, list of visual artists in the book by medium (great for learning about previous unknown-to me artists), list of year born and list by artistic style.Good read! ... Read more

Product Description
African American language is central to the teaching of linguistics and language in the United States, and this book covers the entire field--grammar, speech, and verbal genres. It also reveals the various historical strands that must be identified in order to understand the development of African American English. These are the social and cultural history of the American South, the urban and northern black popular culture, as well as policy issues. The current heated political and educational debates about the status of the African American dialect are also addressed. ... Read more

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Patricia A. Banks traverses the New York and Atlanta art worlds to uncover how black identities are cultivated through black art patronage. Drawing on over 100 in-depth interviews, observations at arts events, and photographs of art displayed in homes, Banks elaborates a racial identity theory of consumption that highlights how upper-middle class blacks forge black identities for themselves and their children through the consumption of black visual art. She not only challenges common assumptions about elite cultural participation, but also contributes to the heated debate about the significance of race for elite blacks, and illuminates recent art world developments. In doing so, Banks documents how the salience of race extends into the cultural life of even the most socioeconomically successful blacks.

Product Description
David C. Driskell’s easy-to-read and thorough critique of the African American art experience—the other side of color—breaks new ground in presenting almost one hundred selections from a unique art collection that provides the context for this book.

First is an overview of the history of African American art--which in this country predates the Civil War--and a detailed explanation of the raison d’etre behind the Cosby collection. Part 2 discusses five prominent postcolonial African American artists who lead the way for future black artists and the struggles they overcame to promote cultural emancipation and acceptance in the American mainstream.

Subsequent parts reveal how African American artists continued the quest for recognition, culminating in the turning point of black culture in the twentieth century in the United States: The Harlem Renaissance. Throughout the discussions within each of the book’s six parts, beautiful full-color artworks from the Cosby collection highlight and validate Driskell’s writing. Rene Hanks’s biographies add even more information about the featured artists as well as indicate the locations of the major collections of their works. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

About the Author
"David C. Driskell is considered one of the world's leading authorities on the subject of African American art. He has taught at Talladega College, Howard and Fisk Universities, and is a visiting professor at the University of Michigan, Queens College, and Obadefemi Awolowo University (the former University of Ife) in Nigeria. He retired as Distinguished University Professor of Art Emeritus from the University of Maryland. In the United States, Driskell has appeared on The Today Show, In the News, and PBS; he has also appeared on television in ten foreign countries. In addition, he is a renowned curator, lecturer, and author. More by David Driskell: Narratives of African American Art and Identity

"240 pages with approximately 100 full-color artworks by 47 African American artists. Casebound, with dust jacket. Size: 10 x 13". Introductions by Camille and Bill Cosby. ISBN: 0-7649-455-3."--© Pomegranate

Good book for collectors of All types of Art!!
Great book.Very useful for new collectors.

Make it Right!
I enjoyed the book; it was entertaining, insightful, scholarly, and included a few insightful surprises!However, I was most disappointed to note the biographical omission of Mr. Simmie Knox; he is too talented and humble a person to be overlooked in such a fashion.So, for the sake of posterity, the book should be recalled and corrected as soon as possible.Surely, we wouldn't want it said this is the way we regard an African American Presidential Artist! Correction please.

The Other Side Of Color
What a beautiful explanation of art that has been ignored for so many years. Not only is the book well illustrated, it is informative. Not having much understanding of art at all, I have now begun to understand the artist, the art and the expression of information that is creative and informative of people and events. This is a book not only for the scholar and informed art collector but for those of us who enjoy beauty. We can now understand creativity in a new way. ... Read more

Product Description
This definitive history of African-American theatre embraces companies from across the U.S., as well as the anglophone Caribbean and African-American companies touring Europe, Australia and Africa. Representing a catholicity of styles, from African ritual to European forms, amateur to professional, and political nationalism to integration, the volume covers all aspects of performance. It includes minstrel, vaudeville, and cabaret acts, as well as shows written by whites that used black casts. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

African-Amerian theatre, African-american History, African-American music history
This is the most comprehensive and accurate book on the subject that I have seen. As a researcher in the field of music and African-American history, I was delighted to find it.

It's all here - slavery to european, amateur to professional
Many of us take for granted the ability to go out on the town and enjoy a play about African Americans. Such plays as A Raisin in the Sun, Dream Girls, and The Piano Lesson have found their way into the hearts of many a theater goer and into the cultural makeup of this country.However, the making of these plays would not have been possible if not for the struggle and sacrifices of many theatrical pioneers. A History of African American Theatre by Errol G. Hill and James V. Hatch is an extensive anthology of all types of African American theatre that gives a wonderful historical perspective that we can use to interpret some of what we see today.The book includes information on minstrels, vaudeville, cabaret acts, musicals, and opera.It's the complete historical reference for the African American theatre lover.

In truth, this book also was exciting to some of my friends who are more history buffs than theatre lovers.I also confess to being very impressed with the author, Mr. Hill, who was the foremost historical scholar in the African American and Caribbean theatre fields and produced and directed more than 120 plays and pageants during a life recently cut short by cancer. Although I never had the pleasure of meeting him, he clearly was a giant!

The book's appeal - like the book itself - has great breadth & depth.
--- Sheldon Dennis, VP - Family Digest Magazine ... Read more

Product Description
Drawing from historical and private collections around the country, Samella Lewis has gathered an impressive representation of the work of African American artists, from the 18th century to the present. For this edition she has provided a new chapter on art of the last decade. Handsomely and generously illustrated, this book reveals a rich legacy of work by African American painters, sculptors, and graphic artists."Art historical scholarship is greatly advanced by Samella Lewis's African American Art and Artists in that it foregrounds the work of artists who have been influencing the texture of art in the United States during the last two decades of the 20th century. Throughout African American Art and Artists, Lewis interrogates the issue of identity by presenting the biographical sketch, which locates the individual artistic personality within a specific cultural background with its own peculiar dynamics, giving a face to two cities of Black American art. Without polemics Lewis presents women artistsEdmonia Lewis to Allison Saaras principal players in constructing an African American visual arts legacy. Here Lewis sufficiently defines the visual arts in order that they may assume their rightful place alongside African American music, literature and folklore as cultural expressions that have helped to give American culture its distinct character."from the foreword by Floyd Coleman, Harvard University. ... 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

Customer Reviews (4)

Misconception?
I just wanted to say that I read the info on the back of the book, and when it said that Capoeira would be featured in the 2004 Athens Olympics, I was esctatic because my boyfriend practices Capoeira and I had hopes of surprising him with the information.Little did I know that when I signed on the official 2004 Athens Olympic site and looked up the sports featured, Capoeira would not be listed.Perhaps the info on the book should be rewritten?

Add to collection
This book is part of a series of books about African and African-American related history. It gives the reader an introduction to Capoeira and is a very good book for children. There are better books for individuals who want more detailed information about Capoeira. However, this is a good selection for someone who does not know much about Capoeira.

Scam
The book "Capoeira - a martial art and a cultural tradition" is worthless if you're already into Capoeira. Most of the facts (and the song lyrics/translations) have been taken from Bira Almeidas book - "Capoeira - a brazilian artform", by that one instead! You can also get better information on Capoeira, just by seraching for "Capoeira" on the Internet! But if you want a lousy copy of Almeidas book, including a lot of wrongly named movements and stuff like that, buy this one!

Even the layout and photography is bad!

Stay away!

A Good Place to Start
Capoeira:A Martial Art and a Cultural Tradition is a good place to learn what Capoeira is. It is NOT a book to teach Capoeira. It gives a good history of this beautiful art as well as a brief insight into how it isperformed. The only downside is that it continually refers to Capoeira as agame when it is really so much more. ... 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

Product Description
Over 200 authentic designs from Dahomey, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, Mali, Kenya, Ghana, other African nations depict such unusual configurations asstylized lions, birds, fish, alligators, totemic figures, abstracts, geometrics and zigzags. Adapted from shields, masks, jewelry, textiles and other sources for copyright-free use by artists, designers and craftworkers.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

OK sort of
This book had very few clip art designs that were of any use. The concentrated on some masks but no real designs. The other book had a CD in it and had all the same pictures too. This was a better investment. Wish I had known that before I wasted my money on both books. Neither were very good. Have several Dover clip art books and this was one of the most disappointing.

Traditional African Designs
Traditional African Designs is a book that includes over 200 pieces of clip art from various countries in Africa.The pictures include representations of people, animals, designs, borders, plants and jewelery. I found this book a great resource not only for graphic design and collageprojects, but also a great inspiration for jewelery design.

Traditional African Designs
Traditional African Designs is a book that includes over 200 pieces of clip art from various countries in Africa.The pictures include representations of people, animals, designs, borders, plants and jewelery. I found this book a great resource not only for graphic design and collageprojects, but also a great inspiration for jewelery design. ... Read more

Product Description
Traces the development of the Baltimore Afro-American, one of America's leading black newspapers, from its founding in 1892 to the dawn of the Civil Rights Era in 1950. It focuses on the Afro-American's coverage of events and issues affecting Baltimore's and the nation's black communities, particularly its crusades for racial reform in the first half of the 20th century. Farrar examines how the Afro-American grew and prospered as a newspaper and as a business. How and why the Afro-American conducted its news and editorial crusades for a powerful local and national black community free of racial disabilities is discussed as well. He also evaluates whether or not the Afro-American succeeded or failed in its racial justice campaigns and to what extent these campaigns made a difference in the local and national black communities' struggle for racial equity. He asserts that the Afro-American was a black middle-class institution that wanted to shape its community according to bourgeois values, but it also broke ground by looking at class issues in the early 20th-century black community. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Review by a family member and employee
This is Farrar's Phd Thesis from VA Tech.The book is about my great grandfather John H. Murphy Sr.He was a former Civil War First Sgt. who fought for his freedom from slavery,serving with Grant & Sherman.With $200 borrowed from his wife,he started the Afro-American Ledger, a merger between two Sunday school teachers.With his five sons, he built the circulation to 200,000 papers a week, nationally and with offices in five cities,Baltimore, Washington, Newark, Richmond and Phila.The campaign led by his son Carl paved the way for Brown vs. Bd. of education. The Afro still publishes today 112 years later inwith offices in Baltimore & DC. This is an excellent book and chronicles the Civil Rights struggle beginning after WWI through the pages of the Afro.A must for the black historian. ... Read more

Product Description
Providing new insight into key debates over race and representation in the media, this ethnographic study explores the ways in which African Americans have been depicted in Black situation comedies-from 1950's Beulah to contemporary series like Martin and Living Single. ... Read more

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Race and technology are two of the most powerful motifs in American history, but until recently they have not often been considered in relation to each other. This collection of essays examines the intersection of the two in a variety of social and technological contexts, pointing out, as the subtitle (borrowed from Brooke Hindle's classic 1966 work Early American Technology) puts it, the "needs and opportunities for study."

The essays challenge what editor Bruce Sinclair calls the "myth of black disingenuity"—the historical perception that black people were technically incompetent. Enslaved Africans actually brought with them the techniques of rice cultivation that proved so profitable to their white owners, and antebellum iron working in the South depended heavily on blacks' craft skills. The essays document the realities of black technical creativity—in catalogs of patented inventiveness, in the use of "invisible technologies" such as sea chanteys, and in the mastery of complex new technologies. But the book also explores the economic and social functions of the disingenuity myth, and therefore its persistence. African-Americans often saw in new technologies a means to escape racial prejudice, but white Americans used them just as often to re-frame the boundaries of social behavior. The essays show that technologies and racialized thought are much more tightly connected than we have imagined.

Published in cooperation with the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation at the Smithsonian Institution ... Read more