146 Northwest Coast Indian Art: An Analysis of Form By Bill Holm Published in English by the University of Washington Press, 2014 7.5” x 9.5”, 144 pages, 120 illustrations (107 in color), 1 map ISBN: 978-02-9599-427-7 Softcover, $30 As a graduate student in the 1950s, Bill Holm began the first systematic structural study of northern Northwest Coast art. After documenting hundreds of bentwood boxes and chests, he published Northwest Coast Indian Art: An Analysis of Form in 1965. This book was to become a foundational reference on northern Northwest Coast Native art. Through his careful studies, Holm described the visual language of this art using new terminology that has become part of the established vocabulary that allows us to discuss works like these and understand changes in style both through time and between individual artists’ styles. Holm’s study reveals how these pieces, although varied in origin, material, size, and purpose, are related to a surprising degree through the organization and form of their two-dimensional surface decoration. A new softcover edition commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of this classic work now offers color illustrations for a new generation of readers as well as reflections from contemporary Northwest Coast artists about the impact of this seminal book. Visions of Grace: 100 Masterpieces from the Collection of Daniel and Marian Malcolm By Heinrich Schweizer Published in English by 5 Continents Editions, 2014 25 x 30 cm, 256 pages, 125 color illustrations ISBN: 978-88-7439-686-3 Hardcover, 50 euros In the summer of 1966, Drs. Daniel and Marian Malcolm ducked into the Grand Palais in Paris to get out of the heat. They discovered an African display there that changed their lives. Since that day, they’ve formed what is unquestionably one of the finest private collections of traditional African art in the United States, one that expresses a strong interest in classicism expressed in objects of consistently high quality. While invitations to visit the Malcolms are not easy for everyone to come by, this beautiful book by Heinrich Schweizer of Sotheby’s, New York, illustrates 100 highlights from their collection, almost entirely from West and Central Africa and ranging in age from a particularly fine two-thousand-year-old Sokoto Nok head to a remarkable twentieth-century northern Nigerian abstract figure, the specific cultural origin of which has yet to be identified. Each object is illustrated full page with clear images by Jon Lam and Pauline Shapiro, and illuminating text by Schweizer provides context and often little-known details. If, in leafing through the pages, the majority of the pieces look familiar, it is because most of them have been extensively published and exhibited, and the provenance and history of each has been meticulously documented. As Daniel Malcolm states in his short introduction, “Someday our collection will be dispersed and I will become a mere provenance. I hope my successors will enjoy the objects as much as I have.” This book, which will be a beneficial addition to any African art library, provides us all the opportunity to do so. Les Phemba: une mère, un enfant, des influences? By Milène C. Rossi Published in French by Éditions Sépia, 2014 20 x 25 cm, 128 pages, 44 color illustrations ISBN: 978-2-84280-241-7 Softcover, 25 Euros Éditions Sépia specializes in the production of books that are accessible both in terms of price and content. It recently published an interesting work on the phemba figures of the Yombe, a people who inhabit the Democratic Republic of Congo and Cabinda, and who were part of the Kingdom of Kongo for an extended period of time. Westerners have long found these figural mother-and-child works appealing. Their iconography is universal, as is their naturalistic aesthetic, and both of these traits are seen as somewhat reminiscent of European art. The book’s author, Milène C. Rossi, a specialist in phemba sculptures, points out that this parallelism has been noted by many scholars, and this observation serves as the starting point for her examination of what Western influence there might have been on this type of object, which is otherwise so African in its formal constructions, its synthetic volumes, and its decorative motifs. She also explores whether it might be related to the iconography of the Western Madonna and Child. The book goes beyond discussing the importation of Western artistic concepts into Africa and delves into the thorny questions surrounding the material and intellectual appropriation of African art by the Western world. BOOKS
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