Tribal Art

"Persona Masks of Africa: Hidden and Revealed Identities" is the catalog of the exhibition of the same name, held at the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, Belgium, from April 24, 2009 to January 3, 2010.

Author: Anne-Marie Bouttiaux
Editions: 5 Continents
Condition: like new
Language: French
Number of pages: 303
Dimensions: 285 x 240mm
Paperback
ISBN: 978-8874395125

African art - with its powerful forms, intricate symbolism and formal inventiveness - has only recently been recognized as one of the great artistic traditions of humankind. This rich tradition is highlighted here in a remarkable selection of exceptional works. Nearly 1,600 objects are illustrated, each accompanied by information on style, use, meaning and cultural origin. Styles from Western Sudan, Coastal West Africa, West Central Africa, Central Africa, and Eastern and Southern Africa are presented individually by section. A thought-provoking introduction helps readers understand the importance of African art as a form of human creative expression, its relationship to contemporary Western art, and the controversies surrounding it in the world museums. Newcomers to the field as well as ...

The first publication of the Barnes Foundation's important and extensive collection of African art. The Barnes Foundation is famous for its stunning collection of Post-Impressionist and Early Modern art amassed by Albert C. Barnes, a Philadelphia pharmaceutical entrepreneur. Less well known is the pioneering collection of African sculpture that Barnes acquired between 1922 and 1924, primarily from the Paris-based dealer Paul Guillaume. The Barnes Foundation was one of the first permanent installations in the United States to feature objects from Africa as works of art. This comprehensive volume presents the 123 objects, including reliquary figures, masks and utensils, most of which come from the African colonies of France (Mali, Ivory Coast, Gabon and Congo) as well as Sierra Leone, of ...

This publication was produced on the occasion of the exhibition "Mangbetu: African court art from Belgian private collections", organized at the Galerie de la Kredietbank from October 22 to December 20, 1992, in Brussels. Exceptional pieces are gathered in this catalog and visible in color and black and white.

Authors: A. Burssens, H. & Guisson
Editions: Gallery of the Kredietbank
Condition: very good
Language: French
Number of pages: 92
Dimensions: 295 x 210mm
Paperback

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the arts flourished at the court of the Bamum, where artists exclusively attached to the palace created thrones and other elaborate seats covered with beads, wooden sculptures, masks with human or animal forms, carved architectural ornaments and multiple decorative objects in bronze, ivory or clay. The book focuses on the history, iconography and meaning of the royal Bamum arts, but it also presents some lesser known artistic forms practiced in the villages of the kingdom. It also evokes the activities of collectors of various origins who were fascinated by the splendor of the royal court. Visual and written sources, including the testimony of King Njoya and his courtiers and rich documents from archives and museums, shed light on the strategies of ...

"In civilizations that have remained in direct and daily contact with nature, bodies, whether naked or adorned, always seem to us to be BODY CELEBRATION. Hence the importance given, to illustrate the theme of this album, to images borrowed from present-day archaic peoples (...) Whether naked or masked, painted or adorned, here are FESTIVATING BODIES from all corners of the world, islands and continents."

Author: André Virel
Editions: The Black Sun
Condition: good, dust jacket slightly damaged
Language: French
Number of pages: 192
Dimensions: 305 x 240mm
Hardcover with original dust jacket
ISBN: 978-2851190208

Is craftsmanship endangered or experiencing an unexpected revival? Should we at all costs save the traditional forms of craftsmanship, precious expressions of the needs and sensitivities of the different peoples of the world? Is it better to encourage the craftsman to deliberately break with the past, to assimilate "the shock of the future" and to create a new aesthetic by exploiting the most modern materials and techniques? What is the precise physiognomy of contemporary craftsmanship in a given country?

Author: Jacques Anquetil
Editions: Drawing and Tolra
Condition: good, dust jacket slightly damaged
Language: French
Number of pages: 240
Dimensions: 270 x 240mm
Hardcover with original dust jacket
ISBN: 978-2249274008

This book, according to its author, "has the sole ambition of drawing attention, through craftsmanship, to the diversity and richness of African cultures and their authenticity".

Author: Jacques Anquetil
Editions: Agency for Cultural and Technical Cooperation
Condition: good
Language: French
Number of pages: 72
Dimensions: 260 x 235mm
Paperback
ISBN: 978-2249274169

Is it a work of art? Yes, certainly, a great work of art. But not art for art's sake, in the Western way. It is an object heavy with religious meaning. To see it in a purely aesthetic light would deprive it of much of its power. In Africa, most sculptures have a hidden religious meaning that doubles their visual aspect. When one understands the reason for a work of art, one better perceives its profound nature. The purpose of this book is to reveal the mysterious side of African works.

Author: Laure Meyer
Editions: Assouline
Condition : very good
Language : French
Number of pages : 199
Dimensions : 290 x 240 mm
Bound with dust jacket
ISBN : 978-2843232831

One of the great merits of this work is to approach the arts of black Africa in a thematic way. Capital importance of religion and magic, belief granted to omnipresent occult forces, ancestral cults accompanied by sacrifices, funeral rites, initiation ceremonies, masked dances for all times of life, power of secret societies, will to the prestige of chiefs, the desire for adornment or the search for beauty in the most humble objects, such are the deep sources of traditional African art. In this context, the artist in charge of creating the essential works had only relative freedom. But what a result! A careful aesthetic analysis shows how brilliantly the problems have been solved: finds of forms, audacity in conceptualization, evocative shortcuts; it is no coincidence that African art has ...

The impact of the art of African tribes on the arts of the West of the 20th century is incalculable. It not only influenced the cubist periods of Picasso, up to his "Demoiselles d'Avignon", but its forms and content also inspired the surrealists, the dadaists and the expressionists.
The photographs in this book were taken by Hans Hinz during his many travels.

Author: R. S. Wassing
Editions: Book Office
Condition: very good, original dust jacket worn
Language: French
Number of pages: 300
Dimensions: 290 x 255mm
Hardcover

Two hundred and seventy-six Nigerian pieces from the famous Barbier-Mueller collection in Geneva were acquired in 1996 and 1997 by France for the Museum of African and Oceanic Arts. This catalog presents this exceptional collection, as well as a synthesis of the study and research work of twenty-eight authors, gathered around the archaeologist Frank Willett and Epko Eyo, former director of antiquities in Nigeria. The terracotta of the Nok civilization, which remains to this day the oldest culture of the Iron Age in West Africa, the famous civilization of Ifè, the bronzes of the Kingdom of Benin, the masked traditions of Igbo country and the Cross-River, the refined sculptural art of the Yoruba, so many rich expressions of invention and meaning that are presented in this book, published on ...

"BAMANA: un art et un savoir-vivre au Mali" is published on the occasion of an exhibition organized by the Museum for African Art in New York and the Museum Rietberg in Zurich, Switzerland, and presented simultaneously in both locations from September to December 2001. The exhibition will travel to the United States during 2003.

Author: Lorenz Homberger & collective
Publisher: Museum Rietberg - Zurich
Condition: like new, small dent on the outer corner
Language: French
Number of pages: 260
Dimensions: 310 x 240mm
Paperback
ISBN: 978-3907077054

This book sets out to present statues, masks and various ritual objects from all over West, Equatorial and Central Africa. The diversity, richness and composition of the works of art collected in this volume allow us to penetrate in depth into the artistic creation of many African ethnic groups, such as the Bamana, the Senufo, the Yoruba, the Songye and the Luba.

Author: De Cees Op't LAND, Bernd LEICHT & Peter De BOER
Publisher: Schulte/Weiss
Condition: like new
Language: French, English, German
Number of pages: 236
Dimensions: 315 x 250mm
Hardcover
ISBN: 9783000196669

The art of the African peoples holds a special place in the concert of world civilizations. Once referred to as "primitive" by the colonizers, African art has long been appreciated for its extraordinary forms and incredible conceptual impact. Through masks, figures of ancestors, braided objects and metal works from all regions of the continent, this work illustrates the full diversity of African art. by always describing the social and religious contexts outside of which works of art cannot be fully understood and interpreted.

Author: Stefan Eisenhofer
Publisher: Taschen
Condition: like new
Language: French
Number of pages: 96
Dimensions: 230 x 190mm
Hardcover
ISBN: 9783822855751

Peoples are always on the move, and with them their ideas and styles, a process in which rivers and rivers have played a determining role over the centuries. The art of sub-Saharan Africa - from Songye power figures to Punu mourning masks, including Fang reliquary figures and Luba sticks -, closely linked to its geographical context, bears witness to this cultural richness. This work, thanks to superb illustrations and detailed descriptions, invites the reader to explore regions very rarely visited by Westerners and to discover the wonders of tribal art.

Authors: Bettina Von Lintig
Publisher: Five Continents
Condition: NEW
Language: French & English
Number of pages: 288
Dimensions: 285 x 240mm
Hardcover
ISBN: 978-88-7439-597-2

In the West, the aesthetic gaze cast on objects from elsewhere is neither neutral nor spontaneous. As far as the arts of Africa are concerned, this constructed gaze was forged at the beginning of the 20th century, in the context of a colonized Africa, through concrete and deliberate actions initiated by a small group of actors, led by Guillaume Apollinaire: avant-garde artists, critics, collectors and dealers. Based on a set of largely unpublished archives, this book focuses on the role played by art dealers at the turn of the last century in the definition, promotion and circulation of African objects as works of art, in Europe and the United States. This factory of the gaze was activated by a narrow circle of individuals who can be considered the main protagonists in the creation of the ...

This is a work that will undoubtedly have made a mark. About twenty years ago, the authors, Jean-Louis Paudrat, Lucien Stéphan, Françoise Stoullig-Marin, mobilized around Jacques Kerchache, attempted the synthesis which hitherto had been lacking in African art and which was obviously expected in the collection "Art and the great civilizations". The company preceded all the global or partial publications made during the 1990s around exhibitions on African arts. With the opening of the musée du quai Branly, a completely revamped edition enriched with around a hundred pieces was essential. Most of them come from this new museum, but also from German, English or American museums. Showing African art in its very artistic context is the principle that guides the approach proposed here. The ...

This is a work that will undoubtedly have made a mark. About twenty years ago, the authors, Jean-Louis Paudrat, Lucien Stéphan, Françoise Stoullig-Marin, mobilized around Jacques Kerchache, attempted the synthesis which hitherto had been lacking in African art and which was obviously expected in the collection "Art and the great civilizations". The company preceded all the global or partial publications made during the 1990s around exhibitions on African arts. With the opening of the musée du quai Branly, a completely revamped edition enriched with around a hundred pieces was essential. Most of them come from this new museum, but also from German, English or American museums. Showing African art in its very artistic context is the principle that guides the approach proposed here. The ...

The extensive work of synthesis by Professor Armand Duchâteau makes it possible to apprehend, in its historical and sociological context, since the 13th century, a great court art, that of the ancient kingdom of Benin. Masters of the technique of lost-wax casting, the artists have produced works of naturalistic tendencies of rare perfection: figures of dwarfs, commemorative heads, bas-reliefs where the rites and ceremonies of life in the courtyard. These royal treasures, in ivory or bronze, occupy a privileged place in the "classical" arts of black Africa.

Authors: Armand Duchâteau
Edition: Dapper
Condition: NEW
Language: French
Number of pages: 135
Dimensions: 290 x 220mm
Hardcover
ISBN: 9782906067103

From the 15th to the 19th century, of the eleven to fifteen million Africans who crossed the Atlantic in the holds of slave ships, about three and a half million landed in Brazil. It is in this country, where they endeavored to perpetuate their traditions, that they were most numerous. This work shows the kinship of Afro-Brazilian productions and the arts of sub-Saharan Africa by favoring cross-references. In this perspective, the authors, anthropologists, sociologists, ethnomusicologist and art historian, French and Brazilian researchers, explored the material and spiritual data in the light of this heritage. Erwan Dianteill's study focuses on the main Afro-Brazilian religions, Candomblé, Umbanda and Macumba, with their variants and specific codes, while Ismael Pordeus analyzes the ...