African art

About this book

"Bamana masks and headdresses, Lega ivories, Dogon sculpture, and Benue bronzes are among the many exquisite African artifacts found in the renowned Menil Collection. This stunning book - the first comprehensive catalogue on the de Menil's collection of African art - features 115 of the museum's finest pieces. Dating primarily from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, these works come from North Africa and the Sahel, Coastal West Africa, and Central and East Africa." "An essay by Kristina Van Dyke discusses the formation of the collection, which was inspired in part by its relationship to modernist works and by the de Menils' interest in human rights. This insightful text also explains how the couple's visionary spirit was influenced by African art, and it places the African pieces within the context of the whole of the de Menils' collection, in which works from ancient, Byzantine, medieval, modern, Oceanic, and Native American cultures speak to the universal struggle for human understanding. Entries for the selected objects, written by leading scholars in the field, are grouped into sections based on regions."--Jacket.