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Art of the Northwest Coast

By Aldona Jonaitis

Originally published in 2006, Art of the Northwest Coast offers an expansive history of this great tradition, from the earliest known works to those made at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Although non-Natives often...

Opening Kailasanatha

The Temple in Kanchipuram Revealed in Time and Space

By Padma Kaimal

Stone figures hardened by ascetic discipline and heroic effort face north in deep shadow. There they meet the gazes of the same gods and goddesses but with gentler bodies enacting grace, warmth, seduction, and marriage,...

The Social Life of Inkstones

Artisans and Scholars in Early Qing China

By Dorothy Ko

An inkstone, a piece of polished stone no bigger than an outstretched hand, is an instrument for grinding ink, an object of art, a token of exchange between friends or sovereign states, and a surface...

Shifting Grounds

Landscape in Contemporary Native American Art

By Kate Morris

A distinctly Indigenous form of landscape representation is emerging among contemporary Indigenous artists from North America. For centuries, landscape painting in European art typically used representational strategies such as single-point perspective to lure viewers—and settlers—into...

Christian Krohg's Naturalism

By Øystein Sjåstad

The Norwegian painter, novelist, and social critic Christian Krohg (1852–1925) is best known for creating highly political paintings of workers, prostitutes, and Skagen fishermen of the 1880s and for serving as a mentor to Edvard...

Latinx Photography in the United States

A Visual History

By Elizabeth Ferrer

Whether at UFW picket lines in California’s Central Valley or capturing summertime street life in East Harlem Latinx photographers have documented fights for dignity and justice as well as the daily lives of ordinary people....

Aboriginal Screen-Printed Textiles from Australia’s Top End

By Joanna Barrkman

Aboriginal Screen-Printed Textiles from Australia’s Top End presents the work of contemporary Australian textile artists working at five Aboriginal-owned art centers in the Northern Territory: Tiwi Design, Jilamara Arts and Crafts Association, Injalak Arts and...

Summoning the Ancestors

Southern Nigerian Bronzes

By Nancy Neaher Maas and Philip M. Peek

Summoning the Ancestors explores a collection of 72 ofo (small ritual objects) and 74 bells produced in southern Nigeria by Igala, Igbo, Edo, Yorùbá, and other neighboring peoples, which was gifted to the Fowler Museum...

Faces from the Interior

The North American Portraits of Karl Bodmer

By Toby Jurovics, Scott Manning Stevens, Lisa Strong, Kristine K. Ronan, and Annika K. Johnson

In the early nineteenth century, Prince Maximilian of Wied traveled the Missouri River to uncover what he called “the natural face of North America”—its landscapes, flora and fauna, and Native inhabitants. Among his small party...

Constructing Revolution

Soviet Propaganda Posters, 1917-1947

By Kristina A. Toland

The eruption of the First World War, the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917, and the subsequent civil war broke down established political and social structures and brought an end to the Tsarist Empire. Russia...

Gordon Bennett

Selected Writings

By Angela Goddard, Tim Riley Walsh

The first publication to survey the writing practice of the late Gordon Bennett (1955–2014), Gordon Bennett: Selected Writings gives vital insight into one of Australia’s important contemporary artists in his own words. Bringing together nearly...

Re-visualizing Slavery

Visual Sources about Slavery in Asia

By Nancy Jouwe, Wim Manuhutu, Matthias van Rossum, Merve Tosun

In Re-visualizing Slavery, historians, heritage specialists, and cultural scientists shed new light on the history of slavery in Asia by centering visual sources—specifically, Dutch paintings, watercolors and drawings from the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries. The...

Totem Pole Carving

Norman Tait, Bringing a Log to Life

By Vickie Jensen

In 1985, photographer and writer Vickie Jensen spent three months with Nisga’a artist Norman Tait and his crew of young carvers as they transformed a raw cedar log into a forty-two-foot totem pole for the...

Unsettling Native Art Histories on the Northwest Coast

By Kathryn Bunn-Marcuse, Aldona Jonaitis

Inseparable from its communities, Northwest Coast art functions aesthetically and performatively beyond the scope of non-Indigenous scholarship, from demonstrating kinship connections to manifesting spiritual power. Contributors to this volume foreground Indigenous understandings in recognition of...

Making Kantha, Making Home

Women at Work in Colonial Bengal

By Pika Ghosh

In Bengal, mothers swaddle their infants and cover their beds in colorful textiles that are passed down through generations. They create these kantha from layers of soft, recycled fabric strengthened with running stitches and use...

What the Emperor Built

Architecture and Empire in the Early Ming

By Aurelia Campbell

One of the most famous rulers in Chinese history, the Yongle emperor (r. 1402–24) gained renown for constructing Beijing’s magnificent Forbidden City, directing ambitious naval expeditions, and creating the world’s largest encyclopedia. What the Emperor...

A Fashionable Century

Textile Artistry and Commerce in the Late Qing

By Rachel Silberstein

Clothing and accessories from nineteenth-century China reveal much about women’s participation in the commercialization of textile handicrafts and the flourishing of urban popular culture. Focusing on women’s work and fashion, A Fashionable Century presents an...

Citizens of Beauty

Drawing Democratic Dreams in Republican China

By Louise Edwards

In the early twentieth century China’s most famous commercial artists promoted new cultural and civic values through sketches of idealized modern women in journals, newspapers, and compendia called One Hundred Illustrated Beauties. This genre drew...

Yumeji Modern

Designing the Everyday in Twentieth-Century Japan

By Nozomi Naoi

The hugely popular Japanese artist Takehisa Yumeji (1884–1934) is an emblematic figure of Japan’s rapidly changing cultural milieu in the early twentieth century. His graphic works include leftist and antiwar illustrations in socialist bulletins, wrenching...

Proud Raven, Panting Wolf

Carving Alaska's New Deal Totem Parks

By Emily L. Moore

Among Southeast Alaska’s best-known tourist attractions are its totem parks, showcases for monumental wood sculptures by Tlingit and Haida artists. Although the art form is centuries old, the parks date back only to the waning...