Happy February, and happy Black History Month! I have been reviewing Art History books on TikTok, Goodreads, and Medium for a while now, so I am often asked for recommendations for Black Art History books. If you would like to read more about Black Art History, these are just a few books you might enjoy. There are a few types of books here, from exhibition catalogues to memoirs, hopefully there will be at least one that resonates with you!
Afro-Atlantic Histories, edited by Adriano Pedrosa and Tomás Toledo, is the exhibition catalogue for a traveling exhibition that I had the pleasure of seeing when it arrived at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. The catalogue covers the Black Atlantic diaspora, including artworks from Africa, North America, the Caribbean, and South America. It also covers about five hundred years of art, beginning with the Atlantic slave trade and continuing through the struggle for abolition and civil rights. The artwork in here is stunning on its own, but the essays within it are also excellent.
This is a book that made its way onto my top eleven Art History books of 2022, and for good reason. Riffs and Relations: African American…
