This stunning collection of 284 rare designs is a bonanza for artists and craftspeople seeking distinctive patterns with a South American Indian flavor. The carefully adapted, authentic motifs include animal and totemic designs, geometric and rectilinear figures, abstracts, grids, and many other styles in a wide range of shapes and sizes.

Kulango Figurines is designed to introduce various miniature works created by the Kulango in northeastern Cote d'Ivoire, who were formerly vassals of the two kingdoms that inhabited the country (Bouna and Gyaman). Their extraordinarily varied art, which can be both intriguing and disconcerting, is relatively unknown. Their metal sculptures in particular display a strikingly free expressiveness, breaking as they do with the iconographic codes that govern their works in wood. Doing away with immobile remoteness, bodies seem to reinvent movement, sometimes adopting almost choreographic gestures, an airy grace, sinuous lines. Or, in trembling tension, some display unexpected twists and provocative curves, while others stretch out impossibly or offer a chance for virtuoso foreshortening and stylised bodies. Still others are even stranger, like Siamese twins, inseparable triplets, headless figures or figures with one head on two torsos, with one leg or four, webbed feet, outsize arms and hooped bodies. Who are these enigmatic beings whose bulging eyes peer at the invisible? Is the sculpture confined to just these specimens? The range of styles is simply astonishing, the forms beyond imagination. The collection includes over 100 figurines, none of which is over 10cm tall: pendants, amulets, fortune tellers' statuettes or weights for gold. Introduced into our world through the metamorphosis of photography, transfigured by lighting and framing effects, these resurrected works have been revitalised, like apparitions from another world. Text in English and French.

A fresh exploration of Native American art that positions the work within the broader context of North American art history This landmark publication presents Native American art within the broader context of American art history, through an examination of notable works from a major private collection. The insightful texts provide a new evaluation of the art, culture, and daily life of numerous North American tribes, including Acoma, Apache, Cheyenne, Creek, Crow, Hopi-Twea, Kiowa, Lakota, Pomo, Seneca, Seminole, Tlingit, and Zuni, among others. The works featured in this lavish volume span centuries, from the period prior to contact with European settlers through the early 20th century, and represent the extensive artistic achievements of culturally distinct indigenous peoples. Both known and unrecorded makers' innovative visions are manifest in a wide variety of aesthetic forms and media-from painting, sculpture, and drawing to costume, ceramics, and baskets. Challenging traditional presentations of American Indian art, this publication situates and analyzes them alongside other North American artistic practices.

"Coast Salish Totem Poles," the media companion to "A Totem Pole History," includes:
- Two CDs that feature Pauline Hillaire telling traditional stories associated with the totem poles and Joe Hillaire singing Lummi songs.
- A DVD that features Pauline showing viewers how to interpret the stories and history expressed in Joe's totem poles.

Aztec -- the name evokes a fabled New World empire, a towering golden culture with bloody human sacrifices and terrifying idols. This world is recreated in Aztec Art, a magnificent volume that readers will treasure.

This is the first comprehensive book on Aztec art: eleven chapters illustrated with seventy-five superb color plates and hundreds of photographs, supplemented by maps and diagrams. Temple architecture, majestic stone sculpture carved without metal tools, featherwork and turquoise mosaic, painted books, and sculptures in terra-cotta and rare stones -- all are here.

Pasztory has placed these major works of Pre-Columbian art in a historical context, relating them to the reigns of individual rulers, events in Aztec history, and the needs of different social groups from the elite to the farmer. She focuses on the little-known aspects of the aesthetics, poetry, and humanity of the Aztecs.

This timely new book surveys the artistic traditions of indigenous North America, from those of ancient cultures such as Adena, Hopewell, Mississippian, and Anasazi to the work of modern artists like Earnest Spybuck, Fred Kabotie, Dick West, T. C. Cannon, and Gerald McMaster. The text is organized geographically and draws upon the testimonies of oral tradition, Native American history, and the latest research in North American archaeology. Recent art historical scholarship has helped restore, to a large degree, some understanding of the identities and cultural roles of Native American artists and the social contexts of the objects they created. Native American art is often discussed simply as a cultural production rather than the work of individual artists who made objects to fufill social and cultural purposes; this book focuses as much as possible on the artists themselves, their cultural identities, and the objects they made even when the names of the individual artists remain unrecoverable. But this is not a book of artists' biographies. It seeks to inform a general readership about the history of Native American art with a lively narrative full of historical incident and illustrated with provocative and superlative works of art. It explores the tension between artistic continuities spanning thousands of years and the startlingly fresh innovations that resulted from specific historical circumstances. The narrative weaves together so-called "traditional" arts, "tourist" arts, and Native American art of today by taking the point of view of their particular and local histories the artists, their communities, and audiences. Among the many cultures included are: Arapaho, Athapascan, Cherokee, Cheyenne, Chumash, Hopi, Hupa/Karok, Inuit, Iroquois, Kwakiutl, Lakota, Miwok, Navajo, Ojibwa, Pomo, Tlingit, Tsimshian, Uypik, and Zuni. "

In April 1966, thousands of artists, musicians, performers and writers from across Africa and its diaspora gathered in the Senegalese capital, Dakar, to take part in the First World Festival of Negro Arts (Premier Festival Mondial des arts negres). The international forum provided by the Dakar Festival showcased a wide array of arts and was attended by such celebrated luminaries as Duke Ellington, Josephine Baker, Aime Cesaire, Andre Malraux and Wole Soyinka. Described by Senegalese President Leopold Sedar Senghor, as `the elaboration of a new humanism which this time will include all of humanity on the whole of our planet earth', the festival constituted a highly symbolic moment in the era of decolonization and the push for civil rights for black people in the United States. In essence, the festival sought to perform an emerging Pan-African culture, that is, to give concrete cultural expression to the ties that would bind the newly liberated African `homeland' to black people in the diaspora. This volume is the first sustained attempt to provide not only an overview of the festival itself but also of its multiple legacies, which will help us better to understand the `festivalization' of Africa that has occurred in recent decades with most African countries now hosting a number of festivals as part of a national tourism and cultural development strategy.

This sumptuous slip-cased set presents the Barbier-Mueller Collection, which includes masterworks from the Aztec, Maya, and other cultures, in two magnificently illustrated books written by the greatest international specialists on the subject, and also includes Sotheby's sale catalogue. The Barbier-Mueller Collection of Pre-Columbian art, recently auctioned at Sotheby's, is the most comprehensive collection of its kind. Comprising some 300 works from Mexico, Central, and South America - wood and stone sculptures, ceramics, textiles, and ritual objects - it spans 1200 BC to AD 1500. The Barbier-Mueller Collection, one of the most important and wide-ranging art collections in the world, was begun by Josef Mueller in Paris in 1908 with the purchase of works by Hodler and Cezanne; the Swiss Mueller then looked beyond Western art and bought his first pre-Columbian piece, an Aztec stone water goddess, in 1920. Today, Mueller's daughter and son-in-law, Monique and Jean Paul Barbier-Mueller, continue to collect Western, African, Oceanic, and Cycladic art, which is frequently on loan to museums around the world. Text in English and French.

First published in 1976, People of the Eland was the first major step away from the outsider's view upon San rock art that had dominated studies of rock art for nearly a century. The title, an account of the rock art of the San of the Drakensberg Range, was also about the mountain San themselves: their lives, their beliefs, their culture and their history during colonisation. The book not only brought an extraordinary and dynamic body of art to the attention of a global audience, but also helped to lay the foundations for a new generation of research into the meaning of prehistoric art. People of the Eland aimed to gain an insider's view of the rock art using San understandings of the world. While following this approach, it quickly became clear to Vinnicombe that the art was very far from simple depictions of daily life as had once seemed likely, but instead reflected the most deeply held San beliefs and symbols. This approach and this understanding has now become the standard for all those working with San rock art. Whilst this early knowledge of San art has been built upon considerably since 1976, People of the Eland remains a cornerstone of our current understanding. Reprinted here in full colour, with the original artwork and photographs, People of the Eland remains a seminal work, the impact of which cannot be underestimated.

"Early Art of the Southeastern Indians" is a visual journey through time, highlighting some of the most skillfully created art in native North America. The remarkable objects described and pictured here, many in full color, reveal the hands of master artists who developed lapidary and weaving traditions, established centers for production of shell and copper objects, and created the first ceramics in North America.

Presenting artifacts originating in the Archaic through the Mississippian periods--from thousands of years ago through A.D. 1600--Susan C. Power introduces us to an extraordinary assortment of ceremonial and functional objects, including pipes, vessels, figurines, and much more. Drawn from every corner of the Southeast--from Louisiana to the Ohio River valley, from Florida to Oklahoma--the pieces chronicle the emergence of new media and the mastery of new techniques as they offer clues to their creators' widening awareness of their physical and spiritual worlds.

The most complex works, writes Power, were linked to male (and sometimes female) leaders. Wearing bold ensembles consisting of symbolic colors, sacred media, and richly complex designs, the leaders controlled large ceremonial centers that were noteworthy in regional art history, such as Etowah, Georgia; Spiro, Oklahoma; Cahokia, Illinois; and Moundville, Alabama. Many objects were used locally; others circulated to distant locales.

Power comments on the widening of artists' subjects, starting with animals and insects, moving to humans, then culminating in supernatural combinations of both, and she discusses how a piece's artistic "language" could function as a visual shorthand in local style and expression, yet embody an iconography of regional proportions. The remarkable achievements of these southeastern artists delight the senses and engage the mind while giving a brief glimpse into the rich, symbolic world of feathered serpents and winged beings.

This comprehensive view of carvings and paintings on stone by Native Americans from 200 B.C. through the nineteenth century surveys the rock art of Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, northern Mexico, and west Texas, providing an incomparable visual record of Southwest Indian culture, religion, and society.

Rock carvings and paintings are important sources in the archaeological and historical interpretation of Southwest Indians. Rock art reflects the cosmic and mythic orientation of the culture that produced it, and understanding of prehistoric peoples, both hunters and gatherers and the Hohokam, Anasazi, Mogollon, and Fremont cultures, and the Pueblo, Navajo, and Apache Indians. Culturally significant events such as the shift in prehistoric times from spear and atlatl to the bow, or, in the historic period, the introduction of the horse into the Southwest, are recorded in rock art.

The illustrations--thirty-two color plates, nearly 250 photographs, and numerous line drawings--bring together in one volume petroglyphs and rock paintings that are scattered over thousands of miles of desert and mesa, giving the reader an overview of Indian rock art that would be nearly impossible to achieve in the field.

"Indian Rock Art of the Southwest" examines from an archaeological perspective the rich legacy of stone drawings and carvings preserved throughout the Southwest. Professional and amateur archaeologists and historians, as well as the general reader with an interest in Indian art, will find this volume a valuable resource.

The first full-length critical analysis of the paintings of Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, this book focuses on Smith's role as a modernist in addition to her status as a wellknown Native American artist. With close readings of Smith's work, Carolyn Kastner shows how Smith simultaneously contributes to and critiques American art and its history.

Smith has distinguished herself as a modernist both in her pursuit of abstraction and her expressive technique, but too often her identity as a Native American artist has overshadowed these aspects of her work. Addressing specific themes in Smith's career, Kastner situates Smith within specific historical and cultural moments of American art, comparing her work to the abstractions of Kandinsky and Miro, as well as to the pop art of Rauschenberg and Johns. She discusses Smith's appropriation of pop culture icons like the Barbie doll, reimagined by the artist as Barbie Plenty Horses. As Kastner considers how Smith constructs each new series of artworks within the artistic, social, and political discourse of its time, she defines her contribution to American modernism and its history. Discussing the ways in which Smith draws upon her cultural heritage--both Native and non-Native--Kastner demonstrates how Smith has expanded the definitions of "American" and "modernist" art."

In Termites of the Gods, Siyakha Mguni narrates his personal journey, over many years, to discover the signifi cance of a hitherto enigmatic theme in San rock paintings known as `formlings'. Formlings are a painting category found across the southern African region, including South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe, with its densest concentration in the Matopo Hills, Zimbabwe. Generations of archaeologists and anthropologists have wrestled with the meaning of this painting theme in San cosmology without reaching consensus or a plausible explanation. Drawing on San ethnography published over the past 150 years, Mguni argues that formlings are, in fact, representations of fl ying termites and their underground nests, and are associated with botanical subjects and a range of larger animals considered by the San to have great power and spiritual significance. This book fills a gap in rock art studies around the interpretation and meaning of formlings. It offers an innovative methodological approach for understanding subject matter in San rock art that is not easily recognisable, and will be an invaluable reference book to students and scholars in rock art studies and archaeology. Written in an accessible style and richly illustrated in full colour, the book will also appeal to general readers and rock art enthusiasts.

One of the most important collections of modern Native American art assembled by one individual, the James T. Bialac Native American Art Collection is an encyclopedic compilation of easel paintings and three-dimensional works. Showcased in this stunning catalogue, the collection comprises nearly four thousand items, including drawings, sculptures, prints, kachinas, jewelry, ceramics, rattles, baskets, and textiles.
James T. Bialac began collecting art in the 1950s, when he was a student at the University of Arizona School of Law. It was then that he purchased the first of what would develop into a collection of more than one thousand kachina dolls. In 1964 he acquired his first painting, Robert Chee's "Moccasin Game, " and he went on to expand his collection to reflect the diversity of Native American art forms. Inspired by his connections with other collectors, Bialac learned the importance of documenting, cataloging, and preserving his collection. In 2010 he bequeathed the collection to the University of Oklahoma, where the art will be displayed at the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, as well as at other locations, including Bialac's native Arizona.
The Bialac Collection represents indigenous cultures across North America, especially the Pueblos of the Southwest, Navajos, Hopis, and many of the tribes of the Great Plains. It encompasses such important and innovative artists as Fred Kabotie, Alfonso Roybal, Fritz Scholder, Joe Hilario Herrera, Allan Houser, Jerome Tiger, Tonita Pena, Helen Hardin, Pablita Velarde, George Morrison, Walter Richard "Dick" West, and Patrick DesJarlait, all of whose work is featured in this volume.
Along with its rich sampling of works from the Bialac Collection, this catalogue offers informative essays by art historians, who draw on their areas of expertise to explain the significance of the artwork. The volume also features a foreword by David L. Boren, President of the University of Oklahoma, a preface by Ghislain d'Humieres, Director of the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, and an introduction by Mary Jo Watson, Director of the School of Art and Art History.
Published in cooperation with the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, University of Oklahoma

This concise survey showcases the work of Australia's indigenous artists from all parts of the continent. From Arnhem Land and the desert, the Kimberley and northern Queensland, to modern towns and cities, Aboriginal artists have built on traditions that stretch back at least 50,000 years, working in a variety of contexts from the sacred and secret realm of ceremony to more public spheres. Work across all media is included, from painting, sculpture, engraving, constructions and weaving to the most recent work in photography, printmaking and textile design. The story of Aboriginal art is brought into the 21st century in this revised and expanded third edition with a new chapter that maps the latest developments across each of Australia's geographical regions. Updated information and more than twenty-five new illustrations highlight, among other things, the impact of urban living, the growth of local art centres which support the work of indigenous artists, and the rise of women artists - all testifying to Aboriginal art's continued dynamism and vitality.

Art lovers well know the works of the different groups of peoples generally referred to as 'Guro' who live in the centre of the Ivory Coast. Close to the Wan, Baule, Yaure, and Bete, the Guro have maintained close contacts with their neighbours, and reciprocal influences are apparent in their various artistic creations. Masks have a particular importance that goes well beyond the value attributed to them for their aesthetic qualities on the art market. These objects might even be considered emblematic, having till now allowed those who have defined themselves as Guro to lay claim to this identity. Whereas the French colonisation largely weakened the prestige of those men whose power resulted from their hunting and war activities, the continuation of complex rituals that entailed the use of masks allowed the men to preserve a form of political and religious control. By diversifying the categories of masks between, on one hand, those that receive blood sacrifices to honour spiritual entities, and those, on the other hand, made more for entertainments given at funerals, political demonstrations, and tourist events, the Guro have reinvented, regalvanised, and readapted perfectly integrated rituals to a contemporary society in permanent change.

This is the first survey of the iconic figure in Northwest Coast art- Charles Edenshaw. Bringing together the largest number of works by Charles Edenshaw ever assembled, offering a rare opportunity to view his legacy. Working in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, he was an exceptional carver of wood, silver and argillite, imbuing traditional Haida design with an innovative and elegant personal style. Recognized in his time as an outstanding carver, his work continues to be a great inspiration to those who visit the many prominent museums around the world that hold his acclaimed artworks in their collections. Not only do these remarkable objects tell us much about Haida culture, but they are truly sophisticated in their aesthetic achievement. In collaboration with the Vancouver Art Gallery and the largest retrospective of Edenshaw's work to date. The book sets up the Haida tradition and explains Edenshaw's Haida roots, including interviews with descendants from the region. Edenshaw's distinct style is addressed along with the issues surrounding attribution with the Haida artworks. Charles Edenshaw carved into wood, argillite and precious metals. His work has been collected by anthropologists and curators in an attempt to record Haida art and culture before it died. Other Haida artists in the tradition include Charles F. Newcombe, Franz Boas and John R. Swanton. Much attention is given to the legacy of Charles Edenshaw and the contemporary artists that he influenced, the book includes an interview with contemporary artists Raymond Boisjoly, Neil Campbell, Robert Linsley and Isabel Rorick. Edenshaw's work is photographed here in this first major monograph on the important Haida artist, ideal for anyone with an interest in Northwest Coast art.

Building on the extended fieldwork of numerous researchers since the 1950s, this text offers a unique window into the dynamic performance contexts of both masquerade and architecture in Central Africa. Although many societies in the Congo were once renowned for vibrant masquerades and architectural sculpture, these phenomena have only been studied as living traditions among a handful of peoples, most notably the Pende. Building on the extended fieldwork of numerous researchers since the 1950s, this text offers a unique window into the dynamic performance contexts of both masquerade and architecture in Central Africa. As much as possible, it privileges Pende voices and seeks to understand the inter-relationship between ritual practice and aesthetic form. Attentive to history, the text also shows these artistic practices have responded (sometimes unpredictably) to both colonial and post-colonial pressure. Lavish illustrations feature both iconic and hitherto unpublished masterworks, which have been selected to evoke the full range of Pende expression.

This illustrated historical overview features some of the finest examples of Cherokee art in private, corporate, and museum collections here and abroad. As Susan C. Power ranges across the rich legacy of Cherokee artistic achievement from the sixteenth century to the present, she discusses such objects as baskets, masks, beaded and embroidered garments, jewelry, and paintings. Power draws on archival and scholarly sources and, when possible, the artists' own words as she interprets these objects in terms of their design, craftsmanship, style, and most important, their function and meaning in Cherokee history and culture. In addition to recognizing artistic merit and significant contributions to the development of Cherokee art, Power reveals the wide range of geographical locales from which Cherokee art has originated. This includes the Cherokee's tribal homeland in the Southeast, the tribe's areas of resettlement in the West, and places in the United States and beyond to which individuals subsequently moved. Intimately connected to the time and place of its creation, Cherokee art changed along with Cherokee social, political, and economic circumstances. The entry of European explorers into the Southeast, the Trail of Tears, the American Civil War, and the signing of treaties with the U.S. government are among the transforming events in Cherokee art history that Power discusses. In the twentieth century, as Cherokee artists joined the mainstream art world, they helped shape the Native American Fine Art Movement. Today, Cherokee artists continue to create in an artistic voice that is uniquely Cherokee - a voice that is both traditional and contemporary.

Salish Blankets presents a new perspective on Salish weaving through technical and anthropological lenses. Worn as ceremonial robes, the blankets are complex objects said to preexist in the supernatural realm and made manifest in the natural world through ancestral guidance. The blankets are protective garments that at times of great life changes-birth, marriage, death-offer emotional strength and mental focus. A blanket can help establish the owner's standing in the community and demonstrate a weaver's technical expertise and artistic vision. The object, the maker, the wearer, and the community are bound and transformed through the creation and use of the blanket. Drawing on first-person accounts of Salish community members, object analysis, and earlier ethnographic sources, the authors offer a wide-ranging material culture study of Coast Salish lifeways. Salish Blankets explores the design, color/pigmentation, meaning, materials, and process of weaving and examines its historical and cultural contexts.

Enter and explore the powerful, ancestral world of the whare whakairo, or Maori meeting house, with this engaging illustrated guide. Richly illustrated with more than 100 historical and contemporary photographs and original watercolour illustrations, The Maori Meeting House celebrates every aspect of these magnificent taonga (treasures) their history and art forms, symbolism and cultural significance. In a clear, informative and personal narrative, Damian Skinner brings together existing scholarship on whare whakairo and his own reflections as a Pakeha art historian and curator, with reference to meeting houses from all over Aotearoa New Zealand and the world. The voices of carvers, artists, architects, writers, experts and iwi are woven into the text, to give every reader new ways of seeing these taonga whether it is your first view or your hundredth. Equal parts history, personal essay and illustrated guidebook, The Maori Meeting House is an important contribution to contemporary discussions about Maori art and art history.

A largely unpublished collection of Japanese Art Brut. A new selection of twenty-five Japanese Art Brut new artists. Following the publication of Art Brut du Japon, co-published in 2008 by the Collection de l'Art Brut and editions Infolio, this catalogue presents pieces by twenty-five new Japanese artists from different regions of Japan, whose works drawings, paintings, photographs, sculptures, and textiles - are largely unpublished. The authors explore the assimilation of Japanese Art Brut into the larger culture from 2008 to the present. As they point out, whereas the notion of mental handicap resides in aesthetic and sociological criteria (these artists are self-taught, and often socially marginalized misfits, draft dodgers, prisoners, psychiatric patients, the elderly, etc. who create outside of the official art system), the condition whether mental or physical is not a criterion in itself. Accompanying an exhibition at Collection de l'Art Brut, Lausanne from November 30, 2018 to April 28, 2019, this catalogue of new Japanese works expands our understanding of Art Brut in a contemporary albeit different cultural setting. Text in English and French.