This classic iconic study of black images in American motion pictures has been updated and revised, as Donald Bogle continues to enlighten us with his historical and social reflections on the relationship between African Americans and Hollywood. He notes the remarkable shifts that have come about in the new millennium when such filmmakers as Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave) and Ava DuVernay (Selma) examined America's turbulent racial history and the particular dilemma of black actresses in Hollywood, including Halle Berry, Lupita Nyong'o, Octavia Spencer, Jennifer Hudson, and Viola Davis. Bogle also looks at the ongoing careers of such stars as Denzel Washington and Will Smith and such directors as Spike Lee and John Singleton, observing that questions of diversity in the film industry continue. From The Birth of a Nation, the 1934 Imitation of Life, Gone with the Wind, and Carmen Jones to Shaft, Do the Right Thing, and Boyz N the Hood to Training Day, Dreamgirls, The Help, Django Unchained, and Straight Outta Compton, Donald Bogle compellingly reveals the way in which the images of blacks in American movies have significantly changed-and also the shocking way in which those images have often remained the same.

As featured in The Wall Street Journal’s 2024 Holiday Gift Books: Fine Art

The definitive monograph of Sam Gilliam one of the great innovators in post-war American painting

An African American artist in the nation’s capital at the height of the Civil Rights movement, Sam Gilliam blazed a trail with his singular artistic vision. Gilliam emerged from the Washington, DC art scene in the mid 1960s with works that disrupted established artistic norms and styles.

Relentlessly experimental and inspired by the improvisatory ethos of jazz, Gilliam’s lyrical abstractions took on an increasing variety of forms, moods, and materials.

This book, made in close collaboration with the Sam Gilliam Foundation, is the first to comprehensively survey the breadth of his extraordinary career, and features never-before-seen archival materials an insightful newly commissioned texts that shine light on the artist, his life, and his work, together with examples of Gilliam's work spanning five decades.

In the complex tangle of past and present, the catalogue reflects on questions of temporality as well as the possibility of engaging with old and new liberation movements.The catalogue raises questions of the political circumstances that move contemporary artists to resort to those non-European avant-gardes that formed as a counterpart of the dominant Western modernism from the 1920s to the 1970s. What are the potentials artists see in the ties to decolonial avant-gardes in Africa, Asia, and the “Black Atlantic” region, to take a stand against current forms of racism, fundamentalism, or neocolonialism? Text: Nana Adusei-Poku, Zeigam Azizov Saloni Mathur, Matthias Michalka, Lina Ramadan.

Originally published in 1971, Gordon Parks’ Born Black was the first book to unite his writing and his photography. It was also the first to provide a focused survey of Parks’ documentation of a crucial time for the civil rights and Black Power movements. Today, more than 50 years later, this expanded edition of Born Black illuminates Parks’ vision for the book and offers deeper insight into the series within it. The original publication featured nine articles commissioned by Life magazine from 1963 to 1970―some never-before published―supplemented with later commentary by Parks and presented as his personal account of these important historical moments. Born Black includes the original text and images, as well as additional photographs from each series, spreads from the 1971 book, early correspondence, reproductions of related Life articles, and new scholarly essays. The nine series selected by Parks for Born Black―a rare glimpse inside San Quentin State Prison; extensive documentation of the Black Muslim movement and the Black Panthers; his commentaries on the deaths of civil rights leaders Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.; intimate portrait studies of Stokely Carmichael, Muhammad Ali and Eldridge Cleaver; and a narrative of the daily life of the impoverished Fontenelle family in Harlem―have come to define his legendary career as a photographer and activist. This reimagined, comprehensive edition of Born Black highlights the lasting legacy of these projects and their importance to our understanding of critical years in American history. Co-published with The Gordon Parks Foundation

A deeply personal meditation on and around modern Black expression, curated by the acclaimed London-based designer

This volume, Grace Wales Bonner: Dream in the Rhythm―Visions of Sound and Spirit in the MoMA Collection, is an artist’s book created by the acclaimed London-based designer Grace Wales Bonner as “an archive of soulful expression.” Through an extraordinary selection of nearly 80 works from The Museum of Modern Art’s collection and archives, this unique volume draws multisensory connections between pictures and poems, music and performance, hearing and touch, gestures and vibrations, and bodies in motion. Photographs, scores and films by artists such as Dawoud Bey, Mark Bradford, Roy DeCarava, Lee Friedlander, David Hammons, Glenn Ligon, Steve McQueen, Lorna Simpson and Ming Smith, among others, are juxtaposed with signal texts by Black authors spanning the past century, including Amiri Baraka, Nikki Giovanni, Langston Hughes, June Jordan, Robin Coste Lewis, Ishmael Reed, Greg Tate, Jean Toomer, Quincy Troupe and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. Published on the occasion of the exhibition Artist’s Choice: Grace Wales Bonner―Spirit Movers, this resplendent publication is a deeply personal meditation on and around modern Black expression that echoes Wales Bonner’s own vibrant, virtuosic designs.
Grace Wales Bonner (born 1990) is the founder and artistic director of Wales Bonner. While she sees herself primarily as a researcher, her practice extends to curation, filmmaking and publishing. In 2019 she curated her first institutional exhibition, A Time for New Dreams, at the Serpentine Gallery, London. She has received numerous awards, including the LVMH Young Designer Prize (2016) and the CFDA International Men’s Designer of the Year (2021). She has also collaborated with brands including Adidas and Dior.

Celebrating the storied career of a beloved letterpress printer whose posters spread messages of racial justice

Detroit-based letterpress printer Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr. is celebrated for his type-driven messages of social justice and Black power, emblazoned in rhythmically layered and boldly inked posters made for the masses. Citizen Printer tells Kennedy’s inspiring story and contextualizes his important work―and offers readers tools for lifting their voices, too. A vital monograph on a trailblazing contemporary Black artist, Citizen Printer features 800 reproductions representing the breadth of Kennedy’s posters and prints, plus original portraiture of the artist at work, a powerful artist statement and a foreword by New York Times bestselling author Austin Kleon, all presented in a dynamic type-forward design from American Institute of Graphic Arts medalist Gail Anderson and Joe Newton.
Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr. (born 1948) was working a corporate job for AT&T when, at the age of 40, he discovered the art of letterpress printing on a tour of Colonial Williamsburg. Kennedy then devoted himself to the craft, earning an MFA at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and teaching at Indiana University. He now operates Kennedy Prints!, a communal letterpress center in Detroit. Borrowing words from social justice heroes Rosa Parks, Fannie Lou Hamer, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth and others, Kennedy layers bold statements on race, capitalism, history and politics in exuberant, colorful and one-of-a-kind posters. Kennedy has been featured in the New York Times, the New York Times Magazine and the Economist, and his work has been exhibited by the Library of Congress, the Museum of Modern Art, New York and other institutions through the US. He was the subject of a 2012 feature-length documentary, Proceed and Be Bold!

PRE-ORDER. ON SALE DATE: April 1, 2025

A definitive celebration of the distinctive art of poster and flyer design in the highly influential culture of Jamaican dancehall music, by one of the best-known voices in the genre.

Combining the energy and vibrancy of vernacular Jamaican art with the cultural insight that only original ephemera can bring, the flyers and posters collected in this book are testament to the creativity and spirit behind one of the most influential and enduring cultures in contemporary music.

Originating in Jamaica in the late 1970s, dancehall music is a club-friendly offshoot of reggae. The genre initially found particular resonance in the Jamaican diaspora and defined the soundsystem cultures that rose to prominence in New York and London in the 1980s and 1990s, which would influence the origins of hip hop. In much the same way that graffiti and paste-ups would for hip hop, the unique style of the artwork, coloring, and lettering of handmade flyers for dancehall nights became a visual language of the culture.

Drawing on unrivaled private collections from Jamaica, London, New York, and Tokyo, this book is a window onto the colorful and effervescent world of dancehall—at once celebrating the ingenuity and beauty of the DIY flyers themselves, and chronicling the evolution of DJs, records, and venues that made the genre into the musical and cultural phenomenon that continues to captivate audiences to this day.

PRE-ORDER. ON SALE DATE: April 8, 2025

A stunning visual homage to Black bookstores around the country along with profiles and essays that celebrate the history, community, activism, and culture these spaces embody, featuring an original foreword by Nikki Giovanni.

Black literature is perhaps the most powerful, polarizing force in the modern American zeitgeist. Today—as Black novels draw authoritarian ire, as Black memoirs shape public debates, as Black polemics inspire protest petitions—it’s more important than ever to highlight the places that center these stories: Black bookstores.

Traversing teeming metropolises and tiny towns, Prose to the People explores these spaces, chronicling the Black bookstore's past and present lives. Combining narrative prose, eye-catching photography, one-on-one interviews, original essays, and specially curated poetry, Prose to the People is a reader’s road trip companion to the world of Black books.

Thoughtfully curated by writer and Black bookstore owner Katie Mitchell, Prose to the People is a must-have addition to the shelves of anyone who loves book culture and Black history. A visually rich tribute, this dynamic book centers profiles of over fifty Black bookstores from the Northeast to the mid-Atlantic, the South, and the West Coast, complete with stunning original and archival photography.

Interspersed throughout are essays, poems, and interviews by New York Times bestsellers Kiese Laymon, Rio Cortez, Pearl Cleage, and many more journalists, activists, authors, academics, and poets that offer deeper perspectives on these bookstores' role throughout the diaspora. Complete with a foreword by world-renowned poet and activist Nikki Giovanni, Prose to the People is a beautiful tribute to these vital pillars of the Black community.

PRE-ORDER. ON SALE DATE: April 8, 2025

Polish up on the latest nail art styles with this globe-spanning book that collects the work of some of today's most creative manicurists.

Getting a fresh set of nails means different things for every customer, but these days, it's a form of self-expression like no other - and the styles continue to evolve. This book travels the world to put today's most inspired nail art at your fingertips. It features profiles of 35 professionals who are carving out a name for themselves on the streets of cities like New York, LA, Vancouver, London, Berlin, Paris, Moscow, Seoul, Tokyo, Punjab, Melbourne/Naarm, and more. New York magazine writer and beauty expert Tembe Denton-Hurst describes each nail-tech, discussing their process, aesthetic, and biggest inspirations, accompanied by photos of their work and firsthand commentary. Her engaging introduction sets the tone, mapping the rich, long history of nail art; there's also a glossary of terms to help readers understand the variety of techniques that are used. From kawaai street style to Mexican folk art, chic runway looks to over-the-top 3D sculpture, glimmering gems, slimy insects, hand painted dreamy moonscapes, and more, Fresh Sets celebrates diversity, individuality, and the limitless possibilities for making a bold statement on a tiny canvas.

PRE-ORDER. ON SALE DATE: March 4, 2025

This striking exhibition catalog celebrates the late artist whose deeply emotional works intermingled realism with abstraction to address complex themes of identity, race, and community. American artist Noah Davis (1983–2015) believed ‘painting does something to your soul that nothing else can. It is visceral and immediate.’ Drawing on art history, personal archives, anonymous photography found in Los Angeles’ flea markets, and his own imagination, he compiled a ravishing body of figurative paintings that explore a range of Black life. Alongside his celebrated paintings, Davis made drawings, collages, and sculptures, and co-founded the Underground Museum. This elegantly designed volume documents the span of Davis’s career and attends to his commitment to representation in the art world and community engagement at the Underground Museum. Alongside new scholarship from writers, artists, and musicians like Tina M. Campt, Claudia Rankine, Marlene Dumas and Jason Moran, this catalog features high-quality reproductions of Davis’s more widely-known works as well as previously unseen archival material. A vital resource for understanding the depth and significance of his practice, this beautiful publication reveals how humanity, humor, imagination, and above all, people, were the epicenter of Davis’s work.

Amy Sherald’s work, life, and significance for American art, as revealed in her powerful figurative paintings of Black subjects
 
Bringing together nearly all of her artwork to date, this lavishly illustrated volume situates the work of Amy Sherald (b. 1973) within the context of American realist and figurative painting. Encompassing the full arc of her career, from her poetic early works to the distinctive figure paintings and portraits that have become her hallmark, Amy Sherald: American Sublime unfolds her method of selecting individuals she meets on the street and using facial expression, body language, and clothing choices to create paintings that transcend portraiture and expand the canon of American art. Essays by curators Sarah Roberts and Rhea Combs; poet and writer Elizabeth Alexander; artist Dario Calmese; and renowned scholar Deborah Willis contextualize and illuminate Sherald’s creation of a new form of imaginative portraiture. Often depicting her subjects’ skin in gray monochrome, surrounded by few markers of place, time, or context beyond the clothes they wear, Sherald challenges the assumption that Black life is inextricably bound with struggle, creating images that engage in more expansive thinking about race and representation and the wide-open possibilities and complexities of every individual. Whether a passerby or the former first lady Michelle Obama, Sherald’s subjects are at ease with themselves, the world, and one another.
 
Published in association with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
 
Exhibition Schedule:
 
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
(November 16, 2024–March 9, 2025)
 
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
(April 9–August 3, 2025)
 
National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC
(September 2025–January 2026)

Pennsylvania State Senator Nikil Saval tells the story of an unlikely partnership between June Jordan and R. Buckminster Fuller, and their attempt to reimagine Harlem in the wake of the 1964 riots.

In the tense days leading up to the 2020 American elections, then-candidate for Pennsylvania State Senate Nikil Saval addressed a virtual audience at the Harvard GSD to tell a story about Black feminist writer June Jordan and a little-known project that resulted from the aftermath of the 1964 Harlem riot. The events of police brutality and community grieving made a lasting impression on Jordan, who, while known for her work as a poet, playwright, and activist, responded with a proposal for a multiple-tower housing design. Through an unlikely partnership with R. Buckminster Fuller, Jordan’s “Skyrise for Harlem” project offered a Futuristic vision for Harlem that argued for environmental redesign: “it is architecture, conceived of in its fullest meaning as the creation of environment, which may actually determine the pace, pattern, and quality of living experience.”
 
Jordan was not an architect in the conventional sense, Saval says. “But in the understanding of someone who sought to propose and build interventions in public space, she was.”

Examining aesthetic connections between the works of more than 50 Black artists from throughout the global diaspora

This book was born out of frustration with art histories that emphasize Black artists’ resilience over the aesthetic impact of their work. The experiences of oppression Black people endure are inconceivable, yet this focus on resilience often overwhelms critical attention to Black artists’ ideas, innovations or use of materials. Imagining Black Diasporas defines “diaspora’’ more broadly, understanding it as a dynamic term that evolves with Black experience. Through four themes, the book illuminates aesthetic connections among established and emerging US–based artists in dialogue with artists working in Africa, the Caribbean, South America and Europe.
Artists include: Mark Bradford, Lorna Simpson, Calida Rawles, El Anatsui, Josué Azor, Isaac Julien, Frida Orupabo, Theaster Gates, Yinka Shonibare, Wangechi Mutu.

Referencing everything from Erykah Badu to ancient Egyptian deities, Jamea Richmond-Edwards creates a brilliant multimedia panorama of Black history

Detroit–based artist Jamea Richmond-Edwards (born 1982) creates work in dialogue with Afrofuturism, mythology, history and Black fashion. Her vibrantly colored canvases take inspiration from the AfriCOBRA collective and are layered with collage and portraiture. This catalog follows her largest solo museum exhibition to date, at the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, and features a monumental painting, several large-scale paintings and a newly commissioned film. Using glitter, fabric and soft sculpture, these paintings depict the artist and her family reimagined as Egyptian deities, encountering dragons and paying homage to Indigenous leaders. The film Ancient Future uses a majorette performance superimposed against the cosmos activated by an experimental jazz soundtrack in collaboration with Richmond-Edwards’ son. The catalog features a selection of stills from the film and a gatefold of the new monumental work.

The latest in the World Stage series of portraits by Kehinde Wiley (born 1977), this volume presents 13 new paintings, the result of the artist's trip to Haiti―a nation that is often presented as a place of chronic poverty, corruption and deprivation. In Haiti Wiley actively went looking for beauty, staging pageants to cast his portrait subjects and advertising with open calls on the radio and posters put up in the streets of Jacmel, Jalouise and Port-au-Prince. Wiley worked within the tradition of pageant culture native to the Caribbean but also subverted it, choosing his winners at random. The paintings draw on the artistic traditions of France and Spain (the colonial rulers of Haiti before the Haitian Revolution), as well as Haiti's varied religious traditions and local crafts, creating a composite portrait of contemporary Haiti through its people, history and culture.

A masterpiece of identity horror and a dark reflection on America’s past and present, Us presents chilly atmospherics, psychological torment and old-world suspense-building plot twists. Whereas Get Out was considered more a mixture of drama and suspense, Peele leaned fully into the horror genre with his sophomore film, using urban legends such as doppelgangers to tease out the uniquely American perceptions of xenophobia and “othering.” Critic Monica Castillo wrote of the film: “Us is another thrilling exploration of the past and oppression this country is still too afraid to bring up. Peele wants us to talk, and he’s given audiences the material to think, to feel our way through some of the darker sides of the human condition.”
Published in conjunction with the fifth anniversary of the critically acclaimed film’s release, this companion paperback features Oscar®-winning director Jordan Peele’s screenplay, alternate endings and deleted scenes, and is richly illustrated with over 150 stills from the motion picture. Specially commissioned annotations by hannah baer, Theaster Gates, Jamieson Webster, Jared Sexton, Mary Ping, Shana Redmond and Leila Taylor present a cosmology of images, definitions and inspirations that extend the themes of the film. Continuing in the legacy of 1960s paperbacks that documented the era’s most significant avant-garde films―such as Kurosawa’s Rashomon, Godard’s Masculin Féminin and Antonioni’s L’Avventura―Us is an indispensable guide to a deeper understanding of this important film.
Jordan Peele (born 1979) is a writer, actor and filmmaker who rose to fame as half of the comedy duo Key & Peele. He has written and directed three feature films: Get Out (2017), Us (2019) and Nope (2022). He was the first Black screenwriter to win an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.

New paintings from Wiley that examine how nature is depicted and symbolized in Japanese art

This striking volume presents a new body of work by American painter Kehinde Wiley, who is best known for his vibrant portraiture of Black people that subverts the hierarchies and conventions of classical European and American portraiture. Drawing inspiration from Japanese nature paintings of the Edo period (ca. 1600–1868), Wiley parallels traditional techniques and materials in these monumental works. Exposed linen in the background of the paintings highlights the natural elements of the scenes while also preserving a delicate balance of untouched picture space. In recontextualizing the naturalist landscape genre from a non-Western perspective, Wiley activates diverse ways of thinking about man’s relationship to nature.
Following the artist’s sixth solo show at Roberts Projects, Los Angeles, this amply illustrated catalog includes commissioned essays placing Wiley’s work within the historical context of Japanese painting as well as contemporary Black art. In Wiley’s own words, “In this new turn, I’m trying to break open the conversation again toward what nature really means in the 21st century, in an era of widespread ecological disasters. Our relationship with nature is increasingly in a perilous position. It invites a reinterpretation of not only an incredible opportunity to explore the vastness and the beauty of nature, but also the astonishing fragility and sadness that surrounds us, and lost opportunities.”
Kehinde Wiley (born 1977) was the first Black artist to paint an official US presidential portrait for former US President Barack Obama. Wiley has held solo exhibitions throughout the United States and internationally, and his works are included in the collections of over 40 public institutions worldwide.

In The Art of Remembering art historian and curator Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw explores African American art and representation from the height of the British colonial period to the present. She engages in the process of "rememory"—the recovery of facts and narratives of African American creativity and self-representation that have been purposefully set aside, actively ignored, and disremembered. In analyses of the work of artists ranging from Scipio Moorhead, Moses Williams, and Aaron Douglas to Barbara Chase-Riboud, Kara Walker, Kehinde Wiley, and Deana Lawson, Shaw demonstrates that African American art and history may be remembered and understood anew through a process of intensive close looking, cultural and historical contextualization, and biographic recuperation or consideration. Shaw shows how embracing rememory expands the possibilities of history by acknowledging the existence of multiple forms of knowledge and ways of understanding an event or interpreting an object. In so doing, Shaw thinks beyond canonical interpretations of art and material and visual culture to imagine “what if,” asking what else did we once know that has been lost.

In Film Blackness Michael Boyce Gillespie shifts the ways we think about black film, treating it not as a category, a genre, or strictly a representation of the black experience but as a visual negotiation between film as art and the discursivity of race. Gillespie challenges expectations that black film can or should represent the reality of black life or provide answers to social problems. Instead, he frames black film alongside literature, music, art, photography, and new media, treating it as an interdisciplinary form that enacts black visual and expressive culture. Gillespie discusses the racial grotesque in Ralph Bakshi's Coonskin (1975), black performativity in Wendell B. Harris Jr.'s Chameleon Street (1989), blackness and noir in Bill Duke's Deep Cover (1992), and how place and desire impact blackness in Barry Jenkins's Medicine for Melancholy (2008). Considering how each film represents a distinct conception of the relationship between race and cinema, Gillespie recasts the idea of black film and poses new paradigms for genre, narrative, aesthetics, historiography, and intertextuality.

A book highlighting the work of pioneering Black printmaker, sculptor, and activist Elizabeth Catlett.
  
Accomplished printmaker and sculptor, avowed feminist, and lifelong activist Elizabeth Catlett (1915–2012) built a remarkable career around intersecting passions for formal rigor and social justice. This book, accompanying a major traveling retrospective, offers a revelatory look at the artist and her nearly century-long life, highlighting overlooked works alongside iconic masterpieces.
 
Catlett’s activism and artistic expression were deeply connected, and she protested the injustices of her time throughout her life. Her work in printmaking and sculpture draws on organic abstraction, the modernism of the United States and Mexico, and African art to center the experiences of Black and Mexican women. Catlett attended Howard University, studied with the painter Grant Wood, joined the Harlem artistic community, and worked with a leftist graphics workshop in Mexico, where she lived in exile after the US accused her of communism and barred her re-entry into her home country.
 
The book’s essays address a range of topics, including Catlett’s early development as an artist-activist, the impact of political exile on her work, her pedagogical legacy, her achievement as a social realist printmaker, her work with the arts community of Chicago’s South Side, and the diverse influences that shaped her practice.

A revelatory look at the life, work, and legacy of the legendary choreographer Alvin Ailey
 
Alvin Ailey is one of the most celebrated choreographers of the twentieth century. The creator of iconic works such as Blues Suite, Revelations, and Cry, he is widely recognized for the dance company he founded in 1958 when he was just twenty-seven years old. Ailey imagined and cultivated a platform for modern dance through his innovative repertoire, interdisciplinary sensibility, and support of dancers and choreographers. This expansive volume situates Ailey within a broader social, creative, and cultural context, looking at the artists who influenced and collaborated with him, the spaces and scenes he frequented, the dynamic themes within his dances, and how his vision and work changed contemporary dance.
 
Essays by artists, scholars, and critics cover topics ranging from the Black church, the South, and the Great Migration to nightclubs, musical influences, and queerness. With more than four hundred images including photographs of works Ailey choreographed, archival materials such as notebooks, sketches, letters, and never-before-published behind-the-scenes photos, and conversations about the legacy of the company with Sylvia Waters, Judith Jamison, and Masazumi Chaya as well as several contemporary dancers and scholars, this study offers an unprecedented full picture of one of the twentieth century’s leading artists and the way his work continues to inspire today’s generation of dancers.
 
Distributed for the Whitney Museum of American Art  
 
Exhibition Schedule:
 
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
(September 25, 2024–February 9, 2025)

Rawles’ transcendent, hyperrealistic paintings of Black bodies in water reckon with the legacy of racial injustice

Merging hyperrealism, poetic abstraction and the cultural and historical symbolisms of water, Los Angeles–based artist Calida Rawles (born 1976) creates unique portraits of Black bodies submerged in and interacting with bright, mysterious bodies of water. The water, itself a sort of character within the paintings, functions as an element that signifies both physical and spiritual healing, as well as historical trauma and racial exclusion.
For her first solo museum show at the Pérez Art Museum Miami, Rawles creates a bridge between her signature style and a story within Miami’s history that is often ignored and obscured. She takes as her subject the residents of Overtown, a once prosperous Miami neighborhood dismantled by systemic racism and gentrification. For the first time, Rawles photographed her subjects submerged in water at the formerly segregated Virginia Key Beach. By taking photographs in situ, Rawles directly engages with the legacy of the Atlantic slave trade, the Jim Crow–era south and Miami’s own ecological history.

Portrayals of James Baldwin and others in his circle highlight the iconic writer’s activism

The American writer and activist James Baldwin (1924–87) considered himself a “witness” as he challenged perspectives on America and its history through his work. He was often recognized for speaking out against injustice when other like-minded artists, collaborators and organizers were overshadowed or silenced. By bringing together artworks that feature James Baldwin alongside portraits of other key figures who had an impact on his life, This Morning, This Evening, So Soon situates Baldwin among a pantheon of culture bearers who were instrumental in shaping his life and legacy, particularly in relationship to his advocacy for gay rights. The book accompanies an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC, curated by the National Portrait Gallery's Director of Curatorial Affairs, Rhea L. Combs, in consultation with Pulitzer Prize–winning author Hilton Als. Well-known portraits by Beauford Delaney and Bernard Gotfryd are shown alongside paintings, photographs and films representing key figures in Baldwin’s circle. By viewing Baldwin in this context of community, readers will come to understand how Baldwin’s sexuality and faith, artistic curiosities and notions of masculinity―coupled with his involvement in the civil rights movement―helped shape his writing and long-lasting legacy.
The book relies on portraiture to explore the interwoven lives of Baldwin, Lorraine Hansberry (writer and activist), Barbara Jordan (lawyer, educator and politician), Bayard Rustin (leader in social movements), Lyle Ashton Harris (artist), Essex Hemphill (poet and activist), Marlon Riggs (filmmaker, poet and activist) and Nina Simone (singer-songwriter, pianist and activist), among others.
Artists include: Richard Avedon, Glenn Ligon, Donald Moffett, Beauford Delaney, Bernard Gotfryd, Faith Ringgold, Lorna Simpson, Jack Whitten.

Street fashion and urban culture have come a long way from humble beginnings in the ‘90s. From disparate local scenes in Japan, Europe, and the US, the youth-driven movements of hip-hop, punk, and skateboarding have finally infiltrated high fashion.  Brands are now eager to collaborate with the icons of music and art who are leading this creative crossover. Customers will stand in line for hours to be the first to own exclusive pieces designed by the likes of Pharrell Williams, Kanye West, and Tom Sachs.  Based in New York, Berlin, and Tokyo, lifestyle publication Highsnobiety is at the forefront of this global phenomenon. The Incomplete immortalizes the stories of brands ranging from Supreme to COMME des GARÇONS. Alongside the most influential designers and tastemakers, Higsnobiety highlights the pieces and brands in men’s fashion which have stood the test of time.

A groundbreaking collection of photographs and essays that shed new light on the history of Black America, from the Picturing Black History project

Picturing Black History uncovers untold stories and rarely seen images of the Black experience, providing new context around culturally significant moments, as part of an ongoing collaborative effort between Getty Images, Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective, and the History Departments at The Ohio State and Miami Universities.

Picturing Black History informs, educates, and inspires our current moment by exploring the past, blending the breadth and depth of Getty Images’s archives with the renowned expertise of Origins contributors and The Ohio State’s and Miami’s History Departments, including Daniela Edmeier, Damarius Johnson, Nicholas Breyfogle, and Steve Conn.

Created by a growing collective of professional historians, art historians, Black Studies scholars, and photographers, this book is full of rousing, vibrant essays paired with rarely seen photographs that expand our understanding of Black history. Showcasing Getty Images’s unmatched collection of photographs, Picturing Black History embraces the power of visual storytelling to relay little-known stories of oppression and resistance, perseverance and resilience, freedom, dreams, imagination, and joy within the United States and around the world.

In collecting these new photographic essays, this book furthers an ongoing dialogue on the significance of Black history and Black life, sharing new perspectives on the current status of prejudice and discrimination bias with a wider audience. Picturing Black History embraces the power of academic learning and scholarship to recontextualize and dispel prejudices, while uncovering, digitizing, and preserving new archival materials to amplify a more inclusive visual landscape.

Travel with Ugandan American designer Nasozi Kakembo as she explores iconic home goods—from Malian mudcloth to Moroccan rugs—at the source and offers thoughtful guidance on collecting and decorating with traditional African treasures

In The African Decor Edit, author Nasozi Kakembo shares her deep knowledge of ethically sourced and aesthetically elevated heritage wares. Through xN Studio, her interior design and product design practice, Nasozi collaborates with artisans throughout Africa, and hers is the rare design book that delves into the origin and meaning behind the furnishings and accessories shown. Each chapter presents artisans in their home countries, telling their stories in their own words. The book also demonstrates the beauty of African decor, with a collection of inspiring, layered interiors from all over the world. The African Decor Edit is a must-have for all who admire African wares and wish to decorate with them in a thoughtful and ethical way.

Celebrated designer, writer, activist, and educator Cheryl D. Holmes-Miller's memoir of a life in advocacy and her journey to answer the question "Where are the Black designers?"

Cheryl D. Holmes-Miller is one of the design field's most respected figures. She is legendary for her decades of scholarship and activism and is known as a touchstone and conscience for the design profession. This long-awaited book documents the history of the question she has been asking for decades: “Where are the Black designers?” along with related questions that are urgent to the design profession: Where did they originate? Where have they been? Why haven't they been represented in design histories and canons?

Holmes-Miller traces her development as a designer and leader, beginning with her own family and its rich multiethnic history. She narrates her experiences as a design student at Rhode Island School of Design, Maryland Institute College of Art, and Pratt, leading up to her oft-cited Pratt thesis examining barriers to success for Black designers. Holmes-Miller describes the work of her eponymous studio for noted clients that included NASA, Time Inc., and the nascent Black Entertainment Television, as well as the story of her later critiques of the industry in the design press, most notably in Print magazine. Miller also recounts the parallel history of collective efforts by fellow scholars and advocates over the past fifty years to identify and celebrate Black designers.

Enhanced with a foreword by Crystal Williams, president of Rhode Island School of Design, award-winning poet, and noted advocate for equity and justice in the fields of art and education, HERE is part memoir, part investigation, and part urgent call for justice and recognition for Black designers, making it an invaluable resource for graphic design professionals, teachers, and students.

The collected photographic works of Eddie Otchere, Britain's foremost chronicler of Black youth culture.

Spirit Behind the Lens takes the reader into the visual world of one of hip-hop’s most enigmatic photographers: Eddie Otchere.

Hailing from the epicentre of London’s jungle scene, this book documents how Otchere crafted the visual identities of house, garage, jungle, drum n bass and hip-hop, working with artists including Biggie Smalls, Wu-Tang Clan, Lil Louis, So Solid Crew, Kemet Crew, Goldie and Black Star.

Accompanied by a written memoir in which Otchere outlines his practice, influence and personal history, Spirit Behind the Lens is not only a history of Black culture told through the work of its greatest and most influential photographer, but a manual on how to navigate the emotional aspects of being creative and an exploration of the romance of photography itself.

Explores the powerful ways in which visual art has long provided its own rich outlet for protest, commentary, escape, and perspective for African Americans.

This important book showcases the potent role of visual art in African American history and culture. Featuring Black artists working in a range of media, from photography to sculpture to painting—including Amy Sherald, Benny Andrews, Sheila Pree Bright, Bisa Butler, Charles Alston, Elizabeth Catlett, Shaun Leonardo, and David Hammons, to name just a few—the book considers art that exemplifies resilience in times of conflict, as well as the ritual of creation, and the defiant pleasure of healing.

Reckoning, based on the exhibition of the same name at the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), explores the ongoing struggles Black Americans have faced in their pursuit to enjoy the fundamental rights and freedoms promised in the Constitution to citizens of the United States. Drawn from the museum’s permanent collection, the featured works respond to the dual crises of Covid-19 and systemic racism that shaped 2020, a period that has been called one of reckoning, as the world witnessed the killing of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and other African Americans, leading to some of the largest protests in US history.

An illustrated edition of The 1619 Project, with newly commissioned artwork and archival images, The New York Times Magazine's award-winning reframing of the American founding and its contemporary echoes, placing slavery and resistance at the center of the American story.

Here, in these pages, Black art provides refuge. The marriage of beautiful, haunting and profound words and imagery creates an experience for the reader, a wanting to reflect, to sit in both the discomfort and the joy, to contemplate what a nation owes a people who have contributed so much and yet received so little, and maybe even, to act. --Nikole Hannah-Jones, from the Preface

Curated by the editors of The New York Times Magazine, led by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, this illustrated edition of The 1619 Project features seven chapters from the original book that lend themselves to beautiful, engaging visuals, deepening the experience of the content. The 1619 Project: A Visual Experience offers the same revolutionary idea as the original book, an argument for a new national origin story that begins in late August of 1619, when a cargo ship of enslaved people from Africa arrived on the shores of Jamestown, Virginia. Only by reckoning with this difficult history and understanding its powerful influence on our present can we prepare ourselves for a more just future.

Filled with original art by thirteen Black artists like Carrie Mae Weems, Calida Rawles, Vitus Shell, Xaviera Simmons, on the themes of resistance and freedom, a brand-new photo essay about slave auction sites, vivid photos of Black Americans celebrating their own forms of patriotism, and a collection of archival images of Black families by Black photographers, this gorgeous volume offers readers a dynamic new way of experiencing the impact of The 1619 Project.

Complete with many of the powerful essays and vignettes from the original edition, written by some of the most brilliant journalists, scholars, and thinkers of our time, The 1619 Project: A Visual Experience brings to life a fuller, more comprehensive understanding of American history and culture.

Opening with David Mancuso's seminal “Love Saves the Day” Valentine's party, Tim Lawrence tells the definitive story of American dance music culture in the 1970s—from its subterranean roots in NoHo and Hell’s Kitchen to its gaudy blossoming in midtown Manhattan to its wildfire transmission through America’s suburbs and urban hotspots such as Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Newark, and Miami.

Tales of nocturnal journeys, radical music making, and polymorphous sexuality flow through the arteries of Love Saves the Day like hot liquid vinyl. They are interspersed with a detailed examination of the era’s most powerful djs, the venues in which they played, and the records they loved to spin—as well as the labels, musicians, vocalists, producers, remixers, party promoters, journalists, and dance crowds that fueled dance music’s tireless engine.

Love Saves the Day includes material from over three hundred original interviews with the scene's most influential players, including David Mancuso, Nicky Siano, Tom Moulton, Loleatta Holloway, Giorgio Moroder, Francis Grasso, Frankie Knuckles, and Earl Young. It incorporates more than twenty special dj discographies—listing the favorite records of the most important spinners of the disco decade—and a more general discography cataloging some six hundred releases. Love Saves the Day also contains a unique collection of more than seventy rare photos.

Alvin Ailey (1931-1989) was a choreographic giant in the modern dance world and a champion of African-American talent and culture. His interracial Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater provided opportunities to black dancers and choreographers when no one else would. His acclaimed "Revelations” remains one of the most performed modern dance pieces in the twentieth century. But he led a tortured life, filled with insecurity and self-loathing. Raised in poverty in rural Texas by his single mother, he managed to find success early in his career, but by the 1970s his creativity had waned. He turned to drugs, alcohol, and gay bars and suffered a nervous breakdown in 1980. He was secretive about his private life, including his homosexuality, and, unbeknownst to most at the time, died from AIDS-related complications at age 58.Now, for the first time, the complete story of Ailey's life and work is revealed in this biography. Based on his personal journals and hundreds of interviews with those who knew him, including Mikhail Baryshnikov, Judith Jamison, Lena Horne, Katherine Dunham, Sidney Poitier, and Dustin Hoffman, Alvin Ailey is a moving story of a man who wove his life and culture into his dance.