The Newark Museum has been at the forefront of American art museums in its representation of the arts of Africa since 1917. Newark’s collection is notable for its embrace of the entire continent and its diaspora as well as for the breadth of artistic representation and inclusion of historic as well as modern and contemporary art. This catalogue is the first devoted to exploring this richly diverse collection, providing a comprehensive overview of African visual culture unmatched by most collection catalogues, ensuring its broad appeal and relevance.
The publication highlights one hundred works that represent this range, including masks and figural statuary, objects of domestic use, dress and adornment, sculpture, photography, paintings, and video art. Individual catalogue entries written by more than forty scholars are presented in chronological order. These are supplemented by essays that survey the museum’s pioneering history of collecting and exhibiting African art and highlight the unique strengths of the collection: arts of North Africa, textiles, Yoruba art, and modern and contemporary art. Collectively, the works in this publication offer a new vision of African art, one that reflects the diversity of artistic creativity on the continent and its global reach, both past and present.
