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An extraordinary collection of beautiful ceramic objects that reflect the intimate connection between pottery and village life across the African continent
A reckoning of the central role of enslaved and free Black potters in the long-standing stoneware traditions of Edgefield, South Carolina Recentering the development of industrially scaled Southern pottery traditions around enslaved and free Black potters working in the mid-nineteenth century, this catalogue presents groundbreaking scholarship and new perspectives on stoneware made in Edgefield, South Carolina. Among the remarkable works included are a selection of regional face vessels as well as masterpieces by enslaved potter and poet David Drake, who signed, dated, and incised verses on many of his jars, even though literacy among enslaved people was criminalized at the time. Essays on the production, collection, dispersal, and reception of stoneware from Edgefield offer a critical look at what it means to collect, exhibit, and interpret objects made by enslaved artisans. Several featured contemporary works inspired by or related to Edgefield stoneware attest to the cultural and historical significance of this body of work, and an interview with acclaimed contemporary artist Simone Leigh illuminates its continued relevance.
A beautifully illustrated look at how the acclaimed ceramicist draws on the postcolonial experience in her work Magdalene Odundo (b. 1950) is a Kenyan-born British ceramicist whose extraordinary works have been widely celebrated for their beauty and universality. Her studies of classical forms across many global traditions—from Greek and Chinese to Aztec and African—are evident in her intimate, evocative shapes. Sequoia Miller sheds light on the colonial and material traditions that inform Odundo's ceramics, showing how the artist deftly blends cultural and ethnographic sources to give expression to the postcolonial experience. This beautifully illustrated book discusses Odundo’s innov...
A fascinating account of the effects of turbulent history on one of Africa’s most storied kingdoms, Kongo: Power and Majesty presents over 170 works of art from the Kingdom of Kongo (an area that includes present-day Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Angola). The book covers 400 years of Kongolese culture, from the fifteenth century, when Portuguese, Dutch, and Italian merchants and missionaries brought Christianity to the region, to the nineteenth, when engagement with Europe had turned to colonial incursion and the kingdom dissolved under the pressures of displacement, civil war, and the devastation of the slave trade. The works of art—which range from depictions of European iconography rendered in powerful, indigenous forms to fearsome minkondi, or power figures—serve as an assertion of enduring majesty in the face of upheaval, and richly illustrate the book’s powerful thesis.
Reveals how gifts of prestige shaped interactions between Africans and Europeans during the era of the Atlantic slave trade and colonialism.
Thomas Hartsfield was born 18 January 1828 in Marion Co., South Carolina. He was the son of Frederick Hartsfield of South Carolina. Thomas came to Tallahassee, Florida ca. 1847 and married Nancy Harding. They were the parents of a son named John and a daughter named Mary Ann. Thomas died in the year 1908 in Florida. Descendants lived primarily in Florida and elsewhere.
This book demonstrates that copper-alloy casting was widespread in southern Nigeria and has been practiced for at least a millennium. Philip M. Peek’s research provides a critical context for the better-known casting traditions of Igbo-Ukwu, Ife, and Benin. Both the necessary ores and casting skills were widely available, contrary to previous scholarly assumptions. The majority of the Lower Niger Bronzes, which we know number in the thousands, are of subjects not found elsewhere, such as leopard skull replicas, grotesque bell heads, ritual objects, and humanoid figures. Important puzzle pieces are now in place to permit a more complete reconstruction of southern Nigerian history. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, African studies, African history, and anthropology.
Introduction : beginning to rethink twins / Philip M. Peek -- Twins and double beings among the Bamana and Maninka of Mali / Pascal James Imperato and Gavin H. Imperato -- Twins and intertwinement : reflections on ambiguity and ambivalence in northwestern Namibia / Steven Van Wolputte -- Sustaining the oneness in their twoness : poetics of twin figures (ère ìbejì) among the Yoruba / Babatunde Lawal -- "Son dos los jimagüas" ("the twins are two") : worship of the sacred twins in Lucumí religious culture / Ysamur Flores-Pena -- Twins, couples, and doubles and the negotiation of spirit-human identities among the Win / Susan Cooksey -- Double portraits : images of twinness in West African s...