Wake Up Our Souls: A Celebration of Black American Artists

From the Dust Jacket

Wake Up Our Souls explores the lives and creations of a select number of esteemed black men and women who are part of the American art scene yesterday and today.  Some of the artists are discussed in detail, while spotlights on others help round out the story.  In all, more than thirty artists and their works are celebrated within these pages.

Beginning in the late eighteenth century with Joshua Johnson, one of the first known professional black artists, the book tells the stories of the triumphs achieved and the obstacles faced by his successors over the next three hundred years.  Among them are sculptors Augusta Savage and Melvin Edwards; painters Henry Ossawa Tanner and William H. Johnson; folk artists Sister Gertrude Morgan and James Hampton; ceramicist Winnie Owens-Hart; and photograohers Roy DeCarave and Gordon Parks.

Published in association with the Smithsonian American Art Museum, one of the nation's great repositories of black American art, the book reprduces more than forty-five works along with extended captions and portraits of the artisits.  Wake Up Our Souls is an intriguing and thouthful introduction to art by black Americans.

»»  YALSA Best Book for Young Adults
»»  VOYA Nonfiction Honor List

Ages 10-up | 128 pages
Hardcover | Harry N. Abrams Inc. in association with the Smithsonian American Art Museum | 2004 | ISBN 0810945274 | MSRP: US$24.95