Table of Contents

Introduction Chapter 1: Colonial America and the Young Republic 1700-1820: Introduction: The fight for independence 1775-83; Africa, North America, and African American Culture Plantations: Architecture and the plantation layout; Slave houses The revival of African culture on the plantations: Life on the plantations; New European-American influences A Planter's house in Louisiana - Plantation slave artists and craftsmen: Textiles and patchwork quilts; Folk art; Pottery Urban Slave Artists and Craftsmen: Furniture; Silversmiths; Fine artists Chapter 2: Nineteenth-Century America, The Civil War and Reconstruction: Introduction: The anti-slavery movement; Free black and slave artisans; Fine artists Architecture, the decorative arts, and folk art: Urban and rural Architecture; Furniture; Metalwork and woodcarving; Pottery; Quilts Fine arts: Painting, sculpture, and graphic arts: Exhibitions and the viewing public; Abolitionist patronage; Graphic arts; Landscape painting; Neoclassical sculpture; Genre and biblical painting Chapter 3: Twentieth-Century America and Modern Art 1900-60: Introduction: Civil rights and double-consciousness; The development of a modern American art African-American culture, the New Negro and art in the 1920s: The Great Migration; The Jazz Age; Expatriates and Paris, the Negro colony; The New Negro movement; Photography; The New Negro artist; Graphic art; Painting The patronage of the New Negro Artist State Funding and the Rise of African-American Art: The Federal Arts Project; The legacy of the New Negro movement: Negritude and figurative sculpture; Folk art; American Scene painting; African-American murals; WPA Workshops and community art centres; Social realism; Abstract art and modernism in New York; Abstract figurative painting; Patronage and critical debate American culture post World War II: Folk art; Painting: Expressionism and Surrealism Abstract Expressionism and African-American Art: Primitivism; Early Abstract Expressionism: Bearden, Woodruff, and Alston; Abstract Expressionism; Second generation of Abstract Expressionists 1955-61 Chapter 4: Twentieth-Century America: The Evolution of a Black Aesthetic: Introduction: Civil rights and black nationalism Cultural crisis: Black artist or American artist: Spiral artist's group 1964-66; Painting The evolution of a modern black aesthetic: Defining black art; Painting; Sculpture Art institutions and the artists' groups: Mainstream art institutions; Black art aesthetics; Black art and black power; Black artists' groups Towards a New Abstraction: Are you black enough?; Painting; Sculpture The Postmodern condition 1980-93: Painting; Video art; Sculpture; Photography Conclusion, Notes, List of Illustrations, Bibliographic Essay, Timeline, Index

About the Author

Sharon F. Patton is Director of the Center for Afroamerican and African Studies and Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Michigan.

Reviews

`Sharon Patton has written a much needed text which surveys the broad scope of the history of African-American art from slavery to the present. She has followed a different tack, tracing art themes and their development throughout the history, rather than the influences of specific artists or periods. Thus, she shows how ideas such as crafts, formal painting and sculpture, or architecture, co-existed with equal importance to the culture from the times of
the Colonies. In so doing, she breaks down the barrier between folk and formal art, and articulates an interrelationship of both concepts to African-American people and their culture. Her book expands
the framework for the visual arts in the United States in the last two centuries.'
Professor Keith Morrison, Dean, College of Creative Arts, San Francisco State University