Synopsis:
Hailed as "a captivating and thorough study of a long-ignored aspect of America's art history" (CHOICE ), Creating Their Own Image offers the first comprehensive history of African-American women artists, spanning from slavery to the Harlem Renaissance and the tumultuous civil rights era, right up to the present day. Lavishly illustrated throughout with color illustrations, this magnificent volume richly details hundreds of important works--including some images never before published--to present a portrait of artistic creativity unprecedented in its scope and ambition. Weaving together an expansive collection of artists, styles, and periods, Lisa Farrington argues that for centuries African-American women artists have created an alternative vision of how women of color can, are, and might be represented in American culture. From utilitarian objects such as quilts and baskets to a wide array of fine arts, Creating Their Own Image serves up compelling evidence of the fundamental human need to convey one's life, emotions, and experiences on a canvas of one's own making.
Review:
Creating Their Own Image: The History of African-American Women Artists is an exemplary piece of scholarship. Rich in information and images, it is contextualized in socio-economic, political and artistic facts. This tome is a brilliant history reflecting the aesthetics and the social and metaphysical traditions of African-American women artists and their artistry. A Must Read!! (Tritobia Hayes-Benjamin, Howard University)
Farrington's survey work fills gaps in the history of American art, and should keep these artists from being overlooked in the future.. (CHOICE)
A clearly written and beautifully illustrated text that presents the myriad and nuanced experiences, visions, and talents of African-American women artists. (April F. Masten, Reviews in American History)
From 'women's work' in fabric art of the slavery era to 'post-black' artists working in a stunning range of styles and mediums, Lisa Farrington's Creating Their Own Image presents an important survey of the extraordinary contributions African-American women artists―-unknown and known, past and present―-have made and continue to make to our visual culture. This is a book we will consult, and enjoy, often. (Henry Louis Gates, Jr., W. E. B. Du Bois Professor of the Humanities, Harvard University)
Farrington gives the reader a layered narrative and a dazzling array of artworks.... It is the kind of book anyone interested in art, women's art, or African American art will want to own and refer to constantly. Anyone teaching women's studies, gender studies, or African American women's studies will want to own this as well. (History)
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