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BOOKS 158 Corpus Rapa Nui By François Dederen “te Pito” Published in a bilingual French and English edition by François Dederen 29.7 x 25.5 cm, 588 pages, more than 400 black-andwhite illustrations and drawings ISBN: 978-2-8052-0214-8 300 copies printed Softcover, 40 euros (exclusive of shipping). Available directly from the author: François Dederen, Clos du Parc 6, B-1420, Braine-l’Alleud, Belgium, tel: (00) (32) 2 384 82 81 This nearly 600-page, two-kilo book’s subtitle, A Worldwide Inventory of Wooden Statuary from Easter Island, summarizes both its contents and the ambitiousness of the project it represents. Its author, François Dederen, a self-taught Easter Island scholar, spent thirteen years researching, identifying, locating, and analyzing the entire known corpus of sculptures from this Pacific island. In this book he proposes a system of classification for Easter Island art that will allow anyone to understand its key components and help detect fakes. Several essays that explain the author’s approach fill the first seventy-two pages, which are followed by wonderful illustrations, lists, and black-and-white plates drawn by Dederen. These are really the highlight of the book. They constitute a kind of visual encyclopedia with both front and back reproductions of more than 400 sculptures—moai kavakava, moai pa’a, and moai tangata. Plates showing the different ways of rendering certain anatomical details, such as ears and cranial engravings, complete his documentation. Fragments of the Invisible: The René and Odette Delenne Collection of Congo Sculpture By Constantine Petridis Published in English by The Cleveland Museum of Art and 5 Continents Editions, 2013 8 ½” x 12”, 120 pages, 125 color illustrations, supplemented with black-and-white photos ISBN-10: 8874396562 Softcover, 30 dollars Fragments of the Invisible documents the initial exhibition under the same title of thirty-four Congo sculptures acquired in 2010 by the Cleveland Museum of Art from Belgian collectors René and Odette Delenne. This is a thorough and well-researched volume that explores the contextual framework of these works both in their various African cultural settings and within their later lives in a European collection and now in a U.S. museum. The book was edited by Cleveland curator Constantine Petridis, who arranged for the acquisition, and it features contributions by Cecile Fromont, Jan-Lodewijk Grooters, Frank Herreman, Dunja Hersak, John M. Jansen, Mary Nooter Roberts, Colleen Snyder, Samantha Springer, and Hein Vanhee. The beautiful photography by Gary Kirchenbauer shows these carefully selected Congo sculptures to their best advantage and presents them as an enviable collection that would be nearly impossible to compile today. Répertoire des photographes français d’outre-mer, de 1839 à 1920 By François Boisjoly, in collaboration with Jean- Christophe Badot Published in French by Éditions Héritage Architectural, Paris, 2013 27 x 21 cm, 312 pages, more than 1,000 black-andwhite and color photographs ISBN: 2-915096-15-5 Softcover, 80 euros This book is a survey of nineteenth-century French and foreign photographers who worked in French territories, as well as of French photographers who worked overseas in areas other than France and Europe. Its author, François Boisjoly, himself a photographer and a student of the field’s history, includes more than 1,500 names and some 1,000 photographs in the book, which he began working on more than thirty-five years ago. It is structured like a directory, with individual entries that offer succinct but revealing information on every photographer listed, including his or her name, presumed years of activity, the nature of the work, the main techniques used, and primary work address. In some cases, additional biographical notes make it possible to better place the photographers in question into the context of their times. The photographs are reproduced mostly in small format, although a few are full page, and they give life to this directory that, with its excellent imagery and careful and elegant layout, has all the qualities of a fine art book. It will delight interested readers, who can also look forward to four future volumes that are presently in the works.


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