ISBN: HB: 9780300263176
November 2022
228 pp.
30,4x22,8 cm
125 colour illus., 28 black&white illus.
HB:
£40.00
QTY:
Categories:
Black Orpheus
Jacob Lawrence and the Mbari Club
The first book to feature Jacob Lawrence's "Nigeria" series, this richly illustrated volume also highlights Africa's place as a global center of modernist art and culture.
This revelatory book shines a light on the understudied but important influence of African Modernism on the work of Black American artist Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000). In 1965, a New York gallery displayed Lawrence's "Nigeria" series: eight tempera paintings of Lagos and Ibadan marketplaces that were the culmination of an eight-month stay in Nigeria. Lawrence's residency in Nigeria put him in touch with the Mbari Artists and Writers Club, an international consortium of artists and writers in post-independence Nigeria that published the arts journal "Black Orpheus". The book and accompanying exhibition place the "Nigeria" series alongside issues of "Black Orpheus" and artwork created by Mbari Club artists, including Uche Okeke, Jacob Afolabi, Susanne Wenger, and Naoko Matsubara. Diverse essays explore the influence of Africa's post-colonial movement on American modernists and developing African artists; the women of the Mbari group; and the importance of art publications in circulating knowledge globally.
This revelatory book shines a light on the understudied but important influence of African Modernism on the work of Black American artist Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000). In 1965, a New York gallery displayed Lawrence's "Nigeria" series: eight tempera paintings of Lagos and Ibadan marketplaces that were the culmination of an eight-month stay in Nigeria. Lawrence's residency in Nigeria put him in touch with the Mbari Artists and Writers Club, an international consortium of artists and writers in post-independence Nigeria that published the arts journal "Black Orpheus". The book and accompanying exhibition place the "Nigeria" series alongside issues of "Black Orpheus" and artwork created by Mbari Club artists, including Uche Okeke, Jacob Afolabi, Susanne Wenger, and Naoko Matsubara. Diverse essays explore the influence of Africa's post-colonial movement on American modernists and developing African artists; the women of the Mbari group; and the importance of art publications in circulating knowledge globally.
About the author
Kimberli Gant is curator of modern and contemporary art at the Brooklyn Museum. She is formerly McKinnon Curator of Modern & Contemporary Art at the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia.
Ndubuisi Ezeluomba is the Francoise Billon Richardson Curator of African Art at the New Orleans Museum of Art.
Ndubuisi Ezeluomba is the Francoise Billon Richardson Curator of African Art at the New Orleans Museum of Art.