Review by Choice Review
Farrington (Parsons School of Design) introduces an impressive number of women artists representing a wide range of styles and themes. The generously illustrated text contains brief biographical information about selected artists situated within period-relevant art currents and concerns. Farrington's timely book offers an opportunity to compare, contrast, and reflect on artistic and aesthetic awareness that documents American times and events. Complementing Lisa Gail Collins's theme-based The Art of History: African-American Women Artists Engage the Past (CH, Dec'02, 40-1963), Farrington's book offers restrained use of jargon in smart analyses made accessible to a general audience. Well-known artists like Betye Saar, Faith Ringgold, Camille Billops, Howardena Pindell, and Emma Amos, who tackled prickly political and social issues with overtly feminist and unabashedly racial works, are clearly seen as influential to younger women like Ellen Gallagher, Kara Walker, and Chakaia Booker, whose promise is to finally integrate the canon after the failure of postmodern pluralism. By documenting the lives and works of pioneering African-American women artists (many of whom did not receive due recognition even in African-American art survey works), Farrington's survey work fills gaps in the history of American art, and thus should keep these artists from being overlooked in the future. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. General readers; lower-division undergraduates through professionals. M. R. Vendryes York College, CUNY
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
