This course provides an introduction to modern and contemporary art produced by Africans on the continent and in the Diaspora. Africa is famous for its dynamic wood and metal sculpture that played a vital role in launching the modern era in Western art. While Pablo Picasso, George Braque and Henri Matisse were studying the figurative sculpture and masks of Africa, African artists were beginning to experiment with new idioms of visual expression introduced from Europe. Professional schools of fine art were established in urban centers across the continent as part of the colonial project. Thus an African avant-garde was born. African artists have been contributing to global visual dialogues that have produced the contemporary art of yesterday and today. They are participating in major biennales; some have become super stars in international art world. The work of artists such as Julie Mehretu, Yinka Shonibare and El Anatsu are being collected by museums all over the world. This course traces the development African academic art during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, exploring the lives artists as well as the national and global contexts where they have worked and in which their art circulates. This art of the recent past and present offers a particularly compelling expression of a complex, creative and vibrant continent.

Class activities include lectures, class discussions, weekly reading assignments and reviews of current African art exhibitions. Student performance will be based on a midterm and final exam, as well as the writing of artist biographies and exhibit critiques.

HISTART Concentration Distributions: B. Sub-Saharan Africa, 4. Modern and Contemporary.

Poster images by Joseph Eze from Nsukka Art School