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Featuring many one-of-a-kind crafts, household and decorative objects. Items found in our store are produced exclusively for the Museum by artisans and craftspeople and imported directly from Africa.
Your purchase at our store supports local African artisans and museum programs.

Likeness and Beyond: Portraits from Africa and the World

Likeness and Beyond: Portraits from Africa and the World attempts to define the nature of portraiture in world art. The need to depict and commemorate individuals is as compelling a motivation for the creation of art in Africa as it is elsewhere. However, in Africa a portrait reveals the subsurface qualities that define the true nature of an individual and reflects the regard for the individual held by members of his community during his lifetime. Emphasis or exaggeration of physical features, a specific characteristic pose or stance, ornamentation or hairstyle, objects or tools associated with a person’s life or work, and actual naming of a piece after the individual are some of the techniques employed by African artists. These embodiments are regarded as transmitting more information than a superficial physical likeness. With this understanding of African portraiture, the initially perceived differences among worldwide portraiture cease to exist.

Exhibition catalogue by Jean M. Borgatti and Richard Brilliant with foreword by Susan Vogel, and introduction by Allen Wardwell. Essays include Portraits: A Recurrent Genre in World Art by Richard Brilliant and African Portraits by Jean M. Borgatti. Catalogue of objects in three categories: emblematic, generic, and representational portraits.

Published and distributed by The Center for African Art, February 1990. 164 pp.

Cloth ISBN: 0-945802-05-6.  Paper  ISBN: 0-945802-06-4. LCCN: 90-1354.

Softcover: $27.00

Hardcover: $54.00