Why read The Image of the Black in Western Art, Volume I?

Book cover of The Image of the Black in Western Art, Volume I: From the Pharaohs to the Fall of the Roman Empire

Book description

In the 1960s, art patron Dominique de Menil founded an image archive showing the ways that people of African descent have been represented in Western art. Highlights from her collection appeared in three large-format volumes that quickly became collector's items. A half-century later, Harvard University Press and the Du Bois…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Image of the Black in Western Art, Volume I as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Solange Ashby

Author

While this book is problematic in that it tries to posit ancient Egyptian art as “Western art”, it includes excellent articles by esteemed scholars of Egypt and Nubia as well as copious images of ancient art from the Nile Valley (Egypt and Nubia) and Greek and Roman art depicting Black people. Despite the incorrigible racism expressed in the Introduction, the scholarly articles included in the book are replete with detailed information about the Africans who lived along the Nile River.

From Solange's list on The best books on ancient Nubia.