Description: The African diaspora generated a wide array of artistic achievements in the past century, from blues to reggae, from the paintings of Henry Ossawa Tanner to the video installations of Keith Piper. Powell's study concentrates on the works of art themselves and on how these works use black culture as both subject and context. 190 illustrations.
Brief description: Richard J. Powell is the John Spencer Bassett professor of art & art history at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, where he has taught since 1989. His publications include: The Blues Aesthetic: Black Culture and Modernism, Cutting a Figure: Fashioning Black Portraiture, Going There: Black Visual Satire, and Homecoming: The Art and Life of William H. Johnson.