Art, Architecture & Photography

African Costumes and Textiles: From the Berbers to the Zulus

Author: Mauro Magliani

This book celebrates the creativity of the peoples of Africa, in particular its weavers, and presents magnificent textiles and accessories in 300 full-color photographs.Celebrating African costumes and textiles, this book draws on historical and modern pieces from the Zaira and Marcel Mis Collection. Whether the materials used are wool, cotton, silk, raffia, or bark, the patterns the weavers produce are predominantly geometric and abstract, but highly stylized figurative motifs are also found. The designs frequently illustrate excerpts from historical or mythical stories.Such extraordinary work exemplifies the craftsmanship of highly skilled African weavers and provides insight into the lives and cultures of different ethnic groups.The book presents a variety of costumes, textiles, and accessories used for everyday wear and for special celebrations, and explores the different techniques, influences, and meanings behind these colorful works of art. The essays describe the history of the development of these techniques and the richness of symbolism in this form of cultural heritage. The superb photography showcases the splendour of these intricate and exquisite textiles.

Today's price: £60.00

African textiles

Author: John Gillow

New in paperback, this book is the most comprehensive survey of African textiles on the market today, illustrating in over 570 spectacular colour photographs the traditional, handcrafted, indigenous textiles of the whole continent. Covering, region by region, the handmade textiles of West, North, East, Central and Southern Africa, African Textiles outlines the vast array of techniques used as well as the different types of loom, materials and dyes that help to create these sumptuous textiles. Containing a useful glossary and map, a guide to collections open to the public, and suggestions for further reading, this book provides a wealth of information on the rich art of African textiles

Today's price: £24.95

Basquiat

Author: Marc Mayer

Annotation: Despite his early death, Basquiat's large and powerful oeuvre has ensured his continuing reputation as one of modern art's most distinctive and eloquent voices. Borrowing from graffiti and street imagery, cartoons, mythology and religious symbolism, Basquiat's drawings and paintings explore issues of race and identity, providing social commentary that is shrewdly observed and biting. This book examines and celebrates the achievements of one of the most original artists of the late twentieth century and features spectacular reproductions of Basquiat's work. It offers new perspectives on Basquiat's achievements, explored in the contexts of the key influences on his work.

Today's price: £14.95

I Saw Your Face

Author: Tom Feelings

Before Tom Feelings passed away in August of 2003, he had been working on a picture book with his friend, poet Kwame Dawes. As Kwame explains, "One day, Tom gave me a folder of drawings of young people from his journeys around the world. I saw a story of resilience and pride, and wrote my poem as a response." These wonderful drawings, paired with lyrical text, offer a fresh encounter with one of our most evocative illustrators

Today's price: £16.99

Joseph Holston: Color in Freedom

Author: Barbara Stephanic

The history of the struggle for freedom from slavery cannot be told too many times. It is a vital component of America's history; it is key in understanding American culture. In Joseph Holston's magnificent suite of images, the story is told deeply and compellingly. His dramatic motion-and color-filled paintings contract the brutal ugliness of slavery with the overwhelming courage of those who survived it, escaped it, and worked to end it. Holston portrays the human capacity for cruelty with stunning poignancy and the human capacity for hope with heartfelt-but measured-joy.

Today's price: £16.99

Posing Beauty:

Author: Deborah Willis

As a student in the 1970s, Deborah Willis found a lack of images of black beauty in the larger culture. Determined to redress this imbalance, Willis started a lifelong quest that has become Posing Beauty. Subjects such as Billie Holiday and Josephine Baker illuminate the past; Angela Davis and Muhammad Ali take us to the civil rights era; Denzel Washington, Lil' Kim and Michelle Obama represent the present. However, she not only celebrates the famous but also recovers a world many never knew existed. Featuring the work of more than one hundred photographers, Posing Beauty challenges our assumptions about what it means to be 'beautiful'.

Today's price: £49.95

The Black Panthers

Author: Stephen Shames

In 1966, as the largely nonviolent Civil Rights movement swept through America, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale founded the legendary Black Panther Party in Oakland, California. Revered by some and vilified by others, the party burst onto the scene with a militant vision for social change and the empowerment of African-Americans. Its methods were so controversial and polarizing that in 1968, FBI head J. Edgar Hoover described the organization as the country's greatest threat to internal security. During the height of the movement, from 1967 to 1973, photographer Stephen Shames had unprecedented access to the organization, capturing not only its public face--street demonstrations, protests and militant armed posturing--but also life behind the scenes, from private Party meetings to Bobby Seale at work on his Oakland mayoral campaign. Shames was prolific and his archive of Panther images is the largest in the world, presenting an uncommonly nuanced portrait of this dynamic social movement. Released on the occasion of the Party's fortieth anniversary, this illuminating publication gathers an astonishing collection of previously unpublished images, containing an electrifying visual history. Panther newspapers, posters and other ephemera help give the ethos of the Panthers and the transformative period of social upheaval for the whole nation.

Today's price: £35.00

Yinka Shonibare MBE

Author: Rachel Kent

Product Description Shonibare employs a wide range of media - sculpture, painting, photography, video and installation pieces - to explore matters of race, class, cultural identity, and history. The artist is best-known for his use of a colourful batik fabric, which, though labeled as 'African', actually originates in Indonesia and was introduced to Africa by British manufacturers via Dutch colonisers in the nineteenth century. Incorporating the fabric into Victorian dresses, covering sculptures of alien figures with it or stretching it onto canvases, Shonibare uses the fabric as a metaphor to address issues of origin and authenticity.Published as a companion to Shonibare's first retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia, and the Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York, this survey explores all aspects of Shonibare's work, offering a fully comprehensive portrait of his projects. Whether he is lampooning Victorian propriety or commenting on the latent ambiguities of the term 'alien', Shonibare makes art that challenges straightforward interpretations. Essays by Rachel Kent and Robert Hobbs, together with a generous selection of colour illustrations explore this talented young artist's work.

Today's price: £35.00