African Art & Culture: Finding Books

Search the UNC Catalog

Reading Lists

Monographs on African Artists: An Annotated Bibliography (Smithsonian Institution Libraries)
Covers 20th and 21st century African artists.
Modern African Art: A Basic Reading List (Smithsonian Institution Libraries)

Reference Books: Biographical & Tribal Information

St. James Guide to Black Artists
Includes biographical information on nearly 400 black artists worldwide, but mostly American, including some from the 19th century.
African Ethnonyms: Index to Art Producing Peoples of Africa
An aid to navigating the numerous variants in tribal names and places. Includes country index.

Reference Books: Iconography, Mythology, Symbolism

Arts Africains: Signes et Symbols
A theoretical work rather than a dictionary but good bibliography and some illustrations.
The Continuum Encyclopedia of Animal Symbolism in Art
Symbols of Africa
Tracing Memory: A Glossary of Graphic Signs and Symbols in African Art and Culture
African Folklore: An Encylopedia
A Dictionary of African Mythology: the Mythmaker as Storyteller
The Language of African Art: A Bicentennial Exhibition from the Museum of African Art 1976-1978
Art Africain: Formes et Rites
Religion in Africa: Experience & Expression
Icon and Image: a Study of Sacred and Secular Forms of African Classical Art
The Religion, Spirituality, and Thought of Traditional Africa

Royal Belt (yet)

Royal Belt (yet), possibly early 1900s, Kuba peoples, Democratic Republic of Congo, plant fiber, rawhide or leather, glass beads, seashells, cowrie shells, cloth, and colorant, Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art