Black Artists in Their Own Words (1) (Documents of Twentieth-Century Art)

Synopsis

The first book to center Black artists' voices on Black aesthetics, revealing a century of evolving relationships to race, identity, and art. What is Black art? No one has thought harder about that question than Black artists, yet their perspectives have been largely ignored. Instead, their stories have been told by intellectuals like W. E. B. Du Bois and Alain Locke, who defined "a school" of Black art in the early twentieth century. For the first time, Black Artists in Their Own Words offers an insightful corrective. Esteemed art historian Lisa Farrington gathers writing spanning a century across the United States, the Caribbean, and the African continent—including from renowned artists Henry Tanner, Nancy Elizabeth Prophet, Romare Bearden, Wifredo Lam, Renee Cox, and many more—that reveals both evolutions and equivocations. Many artists, especially during the civil rights era, have embraced Black aesthetics as a source of empowerment. Others prefer to be artists first and Black second, while some have rejected racial identification entirely. Here, Black artists reclaim their work from reductive critical narratives, sharing the motivations underlying their struggles to create in a white-dominated art world.

Copyright:

2025

Book Details

Book Quality:

Publisher Quality

Book Size:

416 Pages

ISBN-13:

9780520384149

Related ISBNs:

9780520384118, 9780520384125

Publisher:

University of California Press

Date of Addition:

09/02/25

Copyrighted By:

Lisa Farrington

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

History, Nonfiction, Art and Architecture, Literature and Fiction

Submitted By:

Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.

Edited by:

Lisa E. Farrington