Art from Africa: Long Steps Never Broke a Back

This SAM publication by curators Pamela McClusky and Robert Farris Thompson represents a turning point in African art history. The authors draw on personal memories, interviews, and oral narratives to present twelve "case histories" of objects--or clusters of objects--in the Seattle Art Museum's renowned collection of African art. Each case history is enriched by comments from artists, art historians, writers, community members, and patrons who guide readers back into the markets, palaces, ceremonies, shrines, and streets where African art originated.

This book accompanied a special exhibition of the museum's collection, with many pieces that remain still on view at SAM Downtown.

Pamela McClusky is Curator of African and Oceanic Art at the Seattle Art Museum, where in 1980 she was instrumental in establishing a department devoted to the art of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas.

Robert Farris Thompson is professor of African and African American Art History at Yale University

Hardcover:  302 pages

Publisher: Seattle Art Museum (2002)

ISBN: 9780853318482

Product Dimensions: 11 x 9.5 x 1.5 inches