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African American Art Research Guide

Books: Searching SOPHIA | Reference Books | General Collection Books
Electronic Resources: Periodical Databases | Reference Databases | Full-text Journals

Books

Searching SOPHIA

McCain Library has numerous books related to African American art. To find them, search SOPHIA. Do a subject search for the following subject headings:

Afro American art
Afro American artists
African American art
Ethnic Art
Minorities in art

In the lists of headings that come up, you will see additional related subject headings (e.g. Afro American Artists United States or Afro American Arts Bibliography). Click each heading to see a list of books.

You can also try a search for an artist name as subject, e.g.:

Bearden, Romare
Lawrence, Jacob
Tanner, Henry O.

Don’t rely solely on browsing the general collection shelves. Some items may be in the oversized collections (e.g. Harlem Renaissance: Art of Black America, Folio Collection 3rd Floor, N6538 .N5 H286 1987)

Reference Books

Encyclopedia of African-American culture and history edited by Jack Salzman, David Lionel Smith and Cornel West. New York: Macmillan Library Reference, 1996.
Ref. E185 .E54 1996 v.1 – 5 + suppl.

Includes entries on "art collections," "painting and sculpture" and on individual artists.

Kaiser index to Black resources, 1948-1986 from the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture of the New York Public Library. Brooklyn, NY: Carlson Pub., 1992.
Ref. E185 .K24 1992 v. 1 - 5

Dictionary of Art edited by Jane Turner. New York: Grove's Dictionaries, 1996.
Ref. N31 .D56 1996 vols. 1 – 34.

Volume 1 includes an entry on African American art. Entries on individual artists are also included.

Encyclopedia of World Art. New York: McGraw-Hill 1959, 1987
Ref. N31 .E4833 vols. 1 – 17.

Use the index (vol. 15) to find various entries on "Afro-American art" or on specific artists.

Artist Biographies Master Index edited by Barbara McNeil. Detroit, MI: Gale, 1986.
Ref. N40 .A78 1986

Afro-American artists: a bio-bibliographical directory. Boston: Trustees of the Boston Public Library, 1973.
Ref. N6538 .N5 C42

The Black Artist in America: an index to reproductions compiled by Dennis Thomison. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1991.
Ref. N6538 .N5 T46 1991

Museum of American Folk Art encyclopedia of twentieth-century American folk art and artists edited by Chuck and Jan Rosenak. New York: Abbeville Press, 1990.
Ref. NK808 .R6 1990

Arts in America: a bibliography edited by Bernard Karpel. Washington: Published for the Archives of American Art by the Smithsonian Institution Press, 1979.
Ref. NX503.Z1 A78 v.1 - 4

African-American Traditions in Song, Sermon, Tale, and Dance, 1600s-1920: an annotated bibliography of literature, collections, and artworks compiled by Eileen Southern and Josephine Wright. New York: Greenwood Press, 1990.
Ref. NX512.2 .A35 S69 1990

Browse the Reference Collection in the N call # area for additional dictionaries, encyclopedias, biography and other resources in art. Browse the E184-185 call # area for additional resources related to African American history.

General Collection Books

This is a sampling of relevant titles in the McCain collection. To find others, use the search strategies suggested above.

African American art and artists by Samella Lewis. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.
N6538.N5 L38 1990

African-American art by Sharon F. Patton. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
N6538.N5 P38 1998

Art on my mind: visual politics by bell hooks. New York: New Press, 1995.
N6537.H585 A2 1995

The Afro-American artist: a search for identity. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1973.
N6538.N5 F56

Black dimensions in contemporary American art. Edited by J. Edward Atkinson. New York: New American Library, 1971.
N6538.N5 A8

American Negro art. Greenwich, Conn.: New York Graphic Society, 1960.
N6538.N5 D6 1960

Modern Negro art by James A. Porter. New York: Arno Press, 1969.
N6538.N5 P6 1969

Black artists on art edited by Samella S. Lewis and Ruth G. Waddy. Los Angeles: Contemporary Crafts Publishers, 1969.
N6538.N5 L4 v.1 - 2

Electronic Resources

Databases – Periodical Indexes

Art Abstracts and Art Index Retrospective
Index to articles and reproductions in international art publications.
Humanities Abstracts
Citations and abstracts to articles in both general-interest periodicals and periodicals in the humanities, including the fine arts.
Ethnic NewsWatch
Full-text collection of newspaper, magazine and journal articles from the ethnic, minority and native presses.

Databases - Reference

Grove Dictionary of Art (full-text)
Encyclopedic resource covering art history and artists worldwide.

Full-text Journals

Browse full-text journals in the Journal Locator: Fine Arts and Music - Art
Use the Journal/Article Locator to search for specific journal titles as well.