Black Art Ancestral Legacy: The African Impulse in African-American Art

Many black American artists have sought inspiration in ancestral African visual arts, music and dance. Beyond this, African-American painters and sculptors--urban and rural, folk and militant--are struggling toward self-definition. A touring exhibition, which opened at the Dallas Museum of Art where Wardlaw is a curator, explored these themes with stunning impact and is re-created here. Much more than a catalogue, this groundbreaking volume reclaims a living part of the African-American experience. Ranging from the Harlem Renaissance to Caribbean ceremonial objects, from John Biggers's abstracts to Bessie Harvey's mixed-media sculpture The Family (which shows Mother Earth giving birth to all races of humankind), this wide-angled survey provokes and delights. The book takes the reader down unfamiliar paths, revealing the presence of African myths and motifs in contemporary U.S. works. (Apr.)