February is African American History Month! African American art
- Painting, sculpture, graphic arts, and crafts developed by
people of African descent in the United States and thematically
and stylistically informed by African American culture. This
article was excerpted from Africana: The Encyclopedia of the
African and African American Experience, Second Edition. Edited
by Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Kwame Anthony Appiah. Oxford
University Press, April 2005. By Richard J. Powell The term
African American art means different things to different people.
For some the term designates a largely racial phenomenon,
describing all artistic products -- paintings, sculptures,
graphic arts, crafts, architecture, etc. -- created by North
Americans of African descent. For others the preceding
definition fails to take into account the cultural, in addition
to the racial, implications of the term. For this latter group
African American art refers to the artistic and visual products
not just of North Americans of African de