World Art: Africa

by Peter Stepan

The first volume in Prestel ’s exciting new World Art series presents outstanding masterpieces of African art. The selection of works represents the aesthetic achievements of numerous cultures throughout the continent of Africa. Each piece is presented on a double- page spread with high- quality reproductions and illuminating commentary.

128 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2001

Reviews

[Zefyr · Rating 4 out of 5]

This brief overview of African art takes a post-colonial approach and starts with a decent (if similarly brief) overview of what that means. This offered some depth of meaning for the pieces I was already familiar with, and generally helped contextualize my understanding of these pieces. It largely focuses on 18th and 19th century art, and mostly on sculpture and masks. There's almost nothing from the 20th century and what there is not intended to represent more modern work; there's certainly no photography in here. So the variety isn't well-balanced, but it is still rather broad for the limitation of its size.