Arts of West Africa (Excluding Music)

Abstract

RECENT exhibitions of the art of Indian, Chinese, African and ‘primitive’ peoples, such as that of the Burlington Fine Arts Club (see p. 927), have afforded the British public an opportunity of judging at first hand the merits of non-European achievement in this field. The exhibits were, no doubt, to many something of a surprise. The exhibition of African art was supplemented by the simultaneous publication of “Arts of West Africa”, which enables those who are not acquainted with the literature dealing with African art, by now becoming extensive, though of unequal value, to taste the quality of this exotic production at their leisure. It had, however, a more serious purpose. Its publication was suggested in the course of discussions of the Committee on Education of the Colonial Office and was intended to vindicate African art, as something more than a ‘bush’ product, in the eyes of those who are interested in the West African and more especially those, administrators and others, who are in a position to influence the course of his future development.

Arts of West Africa (Excluding Music).

Edited by Michael E. Sadler. (Published for the International Institute of African Languages and Cultures.) Pp. xi + 101 + 32 plates. (London: Oxford University Press, 1935.) 5s. net.