Featuring 107 color photographs, this book offers an overview of
artistic endeavors by blacks since colonial times on the American
continent. Organized chronologically, it’s three chapters cover first
the period from the colonial years to 1920, then the period from 1920
to the 1950s, and finally from the 1950s through the 1990s. Within
those three time periods, the author describes societal circumstances
facing artists, as well as describes various schools and movements
which developed. Consequently, she offers coverage of such key events
in U.S. history as slavery, the Great Migration, the Harlem
Renaissance, the emergence of a
black middle class after WWI, the civil
rights
movement of the 1960s, and later the women’s movement. The
book is only 128
pages long. However, in those relatively few pages,
the author includes enough information to allow readers to acquire a
fundamental understanding of the artistic endeavors of black people on
the North American continent. Further, this overview includes
consideration of a number of the visual arts, ranging from painting to
sculpture, to photography to dollmaking.The series of color
photographs illustrating the artwork discussed by the author are well
chosen. Some occupy entire pages, while others are only a quarter of a
page in size. The difficulty that black
artists had all too
frequently in gaining recognition for their work, especially in the
marketplace, ranks as major focal point for the author in this book.
That explains, in part, the book’s subtitle. Further, within the
struggle to
gain acceptance for black artists in general, she notes
problems faced by black women striving to display their work and gain
standing in the artistic community. As a result, this book can serve
equally well as a text for the study of
Art history, as well as for art
itself.Detailed information about each piece shown in a photograph can be found in the caption for the photograph.
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