Reframing Blackness

An original and empowering corrective to the current understanding of Blackness in Western art and museums, from curator and founder of @ABlackHistoryOfArt, Alayo Akinkugbe.

‘Thorough, accessible, essential’ KATY HESSEL, bestselling author of The Story of Art Without Men
‘Needs to be on every art history reading list' BERNARDINE EVARISTO, Women’s Prize-winning author of Girl, Woman, Other

Since the inception of mainstream art history, Blackness has been distinctly ignored.

In Reframing Blackness, art historian and founder of @ABlackHistoryOfArt, Alayo Akinkugbe challenges this void.

Through 80 different artworks - from Manet, Degas, and, Rossetti to contemporary work by Lubaina Himid and Sonia Boyce, to name a few - Alayo explores the presentation of Black figures in Western art, unveiling an overlooked but integral part of our collective art history.

Alayo also looks at Blackness in museums, in feminist art movements and in the curriculum, rejecting the idea that diversity can be fixed by a few new acquisitions or token inclusions but instead showing us how Blackness has been framed - and how it can be reframed.

Refreshing and accessible, this promises to start a much-needed conversation in culture and education.

Praise for Reframing Blackness:

‘Bold, eloquent, personal and clear-eyed, Akinkugbe is a major new voice in writing about art, museums, and culture' DAN HICKS, award-winning author of British Museums

'A gift of knowledge and an ode to those whose creative expressions give us much to be inspired by today' SOFIA AKEL, award-winning historian

‘A fearless, timely evisceration of so much of the Art History that we have taken for granted…Mandatory reading.’ DR GUS CASELY-HAYFORD, director of V&A East

‘I wish I had a resource like this when I was growing up, but it's equally as impactful in my adulthood.’ RONAN MCKENZIE, photographer, designer and curator