"This is a perceptive study of the forthright work of contemporary African American women painters, sculptors, photographers, and installation artists. . . . Why, she asks, has black art remained marginalized while black music and literature thrive? Collins concludes that images, especially portraits, possess a uniquely volatile power, and that the disregard of black art is the result of the ways slavery, ongoing racism, and class conflict have politicized the depictions of African Americans, especially women."Booklist

"This important study is the first to confront head-on the avoidance of the visual that has plagued black studies in the United States. The Art of History opens the often hermetic world of black visual culture to a much broader realm in which questions central to contemporary feminism, black studies, and cultural theory are brought to bear."Judith Wilson, University of California, Irvine

"The Art of History is an important book that expands the significance of visual culture to African American studies debates. It provides cogent and insightful explorations of the work of contemporary African American women artists. Scholars and general readers alike are sure to be compelled by this original and innovative study."Valerie Smith, author of Not Just Race, Not Just Gender: Black Feminist Readings

Excerpt from The Art of History

"Quiet as its kept, theres a visual paradox at the center of African American thought. There is both a preoccupation with visual culture and a neglect of visual art and artists. The Art of History challenges the entrenched practice of disregarding visual art and artists in African American studies by revealing the centrality of images and objects to the field. By examining the work of contemporary African American women artistsphotographers, filmmakers, painters, and installation and mixed media artiststhis book shows how artists are essential to the field precisely because their art enables new thinking on vital issues of history, representation, aesthetics, and ideology."

Lisa Gail Collins teaches in the art history department and the Africana studies program at Vassar College.