From Elizabeth Keckly’s designs as a freewoman for Abraham Lincoln’s wife to flamboyant clothing showcased by Patrick Kelly in Paris, Black designers have made major contributions to American fashion. However, many of their achievements have gone unrecognized. This book, inspired by the award-winning exhibition at the Museum at FIT, uncovers hidden histories of Black designers at a time when conversations about representation and racialized experiences in the fashion industry have reached all-time highs.

In chapters from leading and up-and-coming authors and curators, Black Designers in American Fashion uses previously unexplored sources to show how Black designers helped build America’s global fashion reputation. From enslaved 18th-century dressmakers to 20th-century “star” designers, via independent modistes and Seventh Avenue workers, the book traces the changing experiences of Black designers under conditions such as slavery, segregation, and the Civil Rights Movement. Black Designers in American Fashion shows that within these contexts Black designers maintained multifaceted practices which continue to influence American and global style today.

Interweaving fashion design and American cultural history, this book fills critical gaps in the history of fashion and offers insights and context to students of fashion, design, and American and African American history and culture.

How Black culture reinvented and subverted the Ivy Look

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2021 BY THE FINANCIAL TIMES
From the most avant-garde jazz musicians, visual artists and poets to architects, philosophers and writers, Black Ivy: A Revolt in Style charts a period in American history when Black men across the country adopted the clothing of a privileged elite and made it their own. It shows how a generation of men took the classic Ivy Look and made it cool, edgy and unpredictable in ways that continue to influence today's modern menswear.
Here you will see some famous, infamous and not so famous figures in Black culture such as Amiri Baraka, Charles White, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., James Baldwin, Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Sidney Poitier, and how they reinvented Ivy and Prep fashion―the dominant looks of the time. The real stars of the book―the Oxford cloth button-down shirt, the hand-stitched loafer, the soft shoulder three-button jacket and the perennial repp tie―are all here. What Black Ivy explores is how these clothes are reframed and redefined by a stylish group of men from outside the mainstream, challenging the status quo, struggling for racial equality and civil rights.
Boasting the work of some of America's finest photographers and image-makers, this must-have tome is a celebration of how, regardless of the odds, great style always wins.

A colossal, panoramic, much-needed appraisal of the visual cultures of Afro-Atlantic territories across six centuries

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2021 BY ARTFORUM
Afro-Atlantic Histories brings together a selection of more than 400 works and documents by more than 200 artists from the 16th to the 21st centuries that express and analyze the ebbs and flows between Africa, the Americas, the Caribbean and Europe. The book is motivated by the desire and need to draw parallels, frictions and dialogues around the visual cultures of Afro-Atlantic territories―their experiences, creations, worshiping and philosophy. The so-called Black Atlantic, to use the term coined by Paul Gilroy, is geography lacking precise borders, a fluid field where African experiences invade and occupy other nations, territories and cultures.
The plural and polyphonic quality of “histórias” is also of note; unlike the English “histories,” the word in Portuguese carries a double meaning that encompasses both fiction and nonfiction, personal, political, economic and cultural, as well as mythological narratives.
The book features more than 400 works from Africa, the Americas and the Caribbean, as well as Europe, from the 16th to the 21st century. These are organized in eight thematic groupings: Maps and Margins; Emancipations; Everyday Lives; Rites and Rhythms; Routes and Trances; Portraits; Afro Atlantic Modernisms; Resistances and Activism.
Artists include: Nina Chanel Abney, Emma Amos, Benny Andrews, Emanoel Araujo, Maria Auxiliadora, Romare Bearden, John Biggers, Paul Cézanne, Victoria Santa Cruz, Beauford Delaney, Aaron Douglas, Melvin Edwards, Ibrahim El-Salahi, Ben Enwonwu, Ellen Gallagher, Theodore Géricault, Barkley Hendricks, William Henry Jones, Loïs Mailou Jones, Titus Kaphar, Wifredo Lam, Norman Lewis, Ibrahim Mahama, Edna Manley, Archibald Motley, Abdias Nascimento, Gilberto de la Nuez, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Dalton Paula, Rosana Paulino, Howardena Pindell, Heitor dos Prazeres, Joshua Reynolds, Faith Ringgold, Gerard Sekoto, Alma Thomas, Hank Willis Thomas, Rubem Valentim, Kara Walker and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye.

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From knitting expert Brandi Harper, a must-have pattern book for modern knitters, with essays on self-care and sourcing creativity

There is no such thing as being kind-of a knitter—the wobbly scarves and that oversized sweater you tried to shrink all count too. Each contribution that you make to the world through knitting is meaningful, but maybe you’ve slowed your commitment to this craft, or you can’t seem to find the time to be creative. There’s a lot to be distracted by, and the path forward isn’t always clear. Brandi Harper aims to bring those challenges to the forefront and help you unearth the immense benefits that knitting has to offer. In her debut book, Knitting for Radical Self-Care, Harper offers tips and suggestions for carving out time for creativity, alongside beautiful patterns to try yourself. The book includes ten original patterns inspired by revolutionary women of color, and Harper will speak to these women and their immense impact on her life and our world. The patterns include detailed instructions, alongside her original prose, all designed to inspire.

NAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2018 BY Esquire • PopSugar • The Huffington Post •  Buzzfeed • Publishers Weekly

A unique new guide to creativity from Questlove—inspirations, stories, and lessons on how to live your best creative life

Questlove—musician, bandleader, designer, producer, culinary entrepreneur, professor, and all-around cultural omnivore—shares his wisdom on the topics of inspiration and originality in a one-of-a-kind guide to living your best creative life. 

In Creative Quest, Questlove synthesizes all the creative philosophies, lessons, and stories he’s heard from the many creators and collaborators in his life, and reflects on his own experience, to advise readers and fans on how to consider creativity and where to find it. He addresses many topics—what it means to be creative, how to find a mentor and serve as an apprentice, the wisdom of maintaining a creative network, coping with critics and the foibles of success, and the specific pitfalls of contemporary culture—all in the service of guiding admirers who have followed his career and newcomers not yet acquainted with his story. 

Whether discussing his own life or channeling the lessons he’s learned from forefathers such as George Clinton, collaborators like D’Angelo, or like-minded artists including Ava DuVernay, David Byrne, Björk, and others, Questlove speaks with the candor and enthusiasm that fans have come to expect. Creative Quest is many things—above all, a wise and wide-ranging conversation around the eternal mystery of creativity.

Once upon a time before crack, Jamel Shabazz was on the scene, working the streets of New York City, capturing the faces and places of an era that have long since disappeared.

Once upon a time before crack, inner city communities were blighted by poverty and unemployment–but not by the drug wars that tore families apart, destroying lives with needless violence and mindless addiction. Once upon a time before crack, pride and style were as inseparable as a beatbox and mixtape, or as a pair of shoes and matching purse. Once upon a time before crack, Jamel Shabazz was on the scene, working the streets of New York City, capturing the faces and places of an era that have long since disappeared.

Best known as Hip Hop's finest fashion photographer for his blockbuster best-selling monograph, Back in the Days (powerHouse Books, 2001), Shabazz revisited his archive and unearthed an extraordinary collection of never-before-published documentary photographs collected for his third powerHouse Books release, A Time Before Crack, a visual diary of the streets of New York City from the mid-seventies to the mid-eighties, Shabazz's distinctive photographs reveal the families, the poses, and the players who made this age extraordinary.

Pre-order: on Sale September 27, 2022

The inaugural volume in a new series of books, Kandis Williams documents the Los Angeles–based artist’s exhibition A Line. Interrogating issues of race, nationalism, authority, and eroticism, her topical work is made across collage, sculpture, and video.

Williams draws on her background in dramaturgy to envision a space that accommodates the biopolitical economies that inform how movement might be read. Looking at the interconnections between popular culture and myth, she relates in her work anatomy, regions of Black diaspora, and communication and obfuscation. Williams’s body of work shapes an alternative language that examines how Black moving bodies are regarded. Williams continues to make visible the inexpressible violence Black bodies have been subjected to in dance and beyond.

Featuring contributions by the curator of 52 Walker—a David Zwirner gallery space—Ebony L. Haynes and the artist and writer Hannah Black, and a stirring conversation between Williams and the choreographer Okwui Okpokwasili, the book serves as an extension of the exhibition. Included are high-quality illustrations of the artworks alongside rich archival materials.

Kandis Williams (b. 1985) was born in Baltimore and received her BFA from Cooper Union in New York in 2009. She is the founder of the publishing and educational platform Cassandra Press. In addition to her visual arts practice, for which she has been exhibited internationally, Williams’s performances have been mounted in institutions across the world. She is the recipient of the 2021 Grants to Artists award, presented by the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, New York, and the 2020 Mohn Award for artistic excellence, presented by the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. Williams is represented by Night Gallery and currently lives and works in Los Angeles.

The Black Experience in Design spotlights teaching practices, research, stories, and conversations from a Black/African diasporic lens.

Excluded from traditional design history and educational canons that heavily favor European modernist influences, the work and experiences of Black designers have been systematically overlooked in the profession for decades. However, given the national focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion in the aftermath of the nationwide Black Lives Matter protests in the United States, educators, practitioners, and students now have the opportunity—as well as the social and political momentum—to make long-term, systemic changes in design education, research, and practice, reclaiming the contributions of Black designers in the process.

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In Beautifully Organized: A Guide to Function and Style in Your Home, Nikki Boyd shares her best advice for how to create an organized, beautiful, and welcoming home. Nikki developed and honed her five essential steps to an organized home through her experience working as a professional organizer. In Beautifully Organized, Nikki teaches you to:

Assess your home to transform the spaces within to enhance your lifestyle

Declutter and curate your possessions to keep what is useful and meaningful

Clean with efficiency, adding an element of pleasure to everyday tasks

Organize so you can find what you need, when you need it

Beautify and decorate to create a welcoming atmosphere for family and friends

“It is my belief that an organized home guarantees a beautiful and fulfilling life.”

With her keen eye for detail and trademark warmth, Nikki guides readers through these steps, teaching how to graciously share your homes with family and friends to create treasured shared experiences and memories. Beautifully Organized is so much more than a home organization book—it’s a recipe for a beautiful, fulfilling life.

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A groundbreaking A-Z survey of the work of over 300 modern and contemporary artists born or based in Africa

Modern and Contemporary African art is at the forefront of the current curatorial and collector movement in today’s art scene. This groundbreaking new book, created in collaboration with a prestigious global advisory board, represents the most substantial appraisal of contemporary artists born or based in Africa available. Features the work of more than 300 artists, including El Anatsui, Marlene Dumas, David Goldblatt, Lubaina Himid, William Kentridge, Julie Mehretu, Wangechi Mutu, and Robin Rhode, as well as lesser-known names from across Africa, with stunning and surprising examples of their art paired with insightful texts that demonstrate their contribution to the painting, sculpture, installation, photography, moving image, and performance art.

The acclaimed overview of Black abstract art, now in an expanded edition with nearly 100 additional color plates

The Joyner/Giuffrida Collection of Abstract Art is widely recognized as one of the most significant collections of modern and contemporary work by artists of the African diaspora and from the continent of Africa itself. Four Generations: The Joyner/Giuffrida Collection of Abstract Art draws upon the collection's unparalleled holdings to explore the critical contributions made by Black artists to the evolution of visual art in the 20th and 21st centuries.

This revised and expanded edition updates Four Generations with several new texts and nearly 100 images of works that have been added to the collection since the initial publication of this influential and widely praised book. Lavishly illustrated and featuring important contributions by leading art historians, critics, and curators, Four Generations gives an essential overview of some of the most notable Black artists and movements of the past century, and their approaches to abstraction in its various forms. Filled with countless insights and visual treasures, Four Generations is a journey through the momentous legacy of postwar art of the African diaspora.

Artists include: Firelei Báez, Romare Bearden, Kevin Beasley, Zander Blom, Mark Bradford, Leonardo Drew, Sam Gilliam, David Hammons, Isaac Julien, Jacob Lawrence, Norman Lewis, Glenn Ligon, Julie Mehretu, Oscar Murillo, Christina Quarles, Robin Rhode, Lorna Simpson, Shinique Smith, Alma Thomas, Kara Walker, Jack Whitten, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye and many others.

Rarely is a monograph on a private collection as revelatory as this—what an extraordinary, rich body of work is packed into these pages. The achievements of the artists, as well as their conceptual and formal daring, leave no doubt that a new page on American art is about to be opened." –Okwui Enwezor

For the dope Black Creative in your life!

Hard enamel with gold plating
1.5 inches wide
2 posts with rubber clutches
Pin comes with 2 rubber pin backs

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Throughout Africa, artists use hip-hop both to describe their lives and to create shared spaces for uncensored social commentary, feminist challenges to patriarchy, and resistance against state institutions, while at the same time engaging with the global hip-hop community. In Hip-Hop in Africa, Msia Kibona Clark examines some of Africa’s biggest hip-hop scenes and shows how hip-hop helps us understand specifically African narratives of social, political, and economic realities. Clark looks at the use of hip-hop in protest, both as a means of articulating social problems and as a tool for mobilizing listeners around those problems. She also details the spread of hip-hop culture in Africa following its emergence in the United States, assessing the impact of urbanization and demographics on the spread of hip-hop culture.Hip-Hop in Africa is a tribute to a genre and its artists as well as a timely examination that pushes the study of music and diaspora in critical new directions. Accessibly written by one of the foremost experts on African hip-hop, this book will easily find its place in the classroom.

Throughout Africa, artists use hip-hop both to describe their lives and to create shared spaces for uncensored social commentary, feminist challenges to patriarchy, and resistance against state institutions, while at the same time engaging with the global hip-hop community. In Hip-Hop in Africa, Msia Kibona Clark examines some of Africa’s biggest hip-hop scenes and shows how hip-hop helps us understand specifically African narratives of social, political, and economic realities. Clark looks at the use of hip-hop in protest, both as a means of articulating social problems and as a tool for mobilizing listeners around those problems. She also details the spread of hip-hop culture in Africa following its emergence in the United States, assessing the impact of urbanization and demographics on the spread of hip-hop culture.Hip-Hop in Africa is a tribute to a genre and its artists as well as a timely examination that pushes the study of music and diaspora in critical new directions. Accessibly written by one of the foremost experts on African hip-hop, this book will easily find its place in the classroom.

A comprehensive compendium of artists and writers confronting questions of Black identity, activism and social responsibility in the age of Malcolm X and the Black Panthers, based on the landmark traveling exhibition

What is “Black art”? This question was posed and answered time and time again between 1960 and 1980 by artists, curators and critics deeply affected by this turbulent period of radical social and political upheaval in America. Rather than answering in one way, they argued for radically different ideas of what “Black art” meant.

Across newspapers and magazines, catalogs, pamphlets, interviews, public talks and panel discussions, a lively debate emerged between artists and others to address profound questions of how Black artists should or should not deal with politics, about what audiences they should address and inspire, where they should try to exhibit, how their work should be curated, and whether there was or was not such a category as “Black art” in the first place.

Conceived as a reader connected to the landmark exhibition Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power, which shone a light on the vital contributions made by Black artists over two decades, this anthology collects over 200 texts from the artists, critics, curators and others who sought to shape and define the art of their time.

Exhaustively researched and edited by exhibition curator Mark Godfrey, who provides the substantial introduction, and Allie Biswas, included are rare and out-of-print texts from artists and writers, as well as texts published for the first time ever.

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With a poet's precision and an intellectually adventurous spirit, Elizabeth Alexander explores a wide spectrum of contemporary African American artistic life through literature, paintings, popular media, and films, and discusses its place in current culture. In The Black Interior, she examines the vital roles of such heavyweight literary figures as Gwendolyn Brooks, Langston Hughes, and Rita Dove, as well as lesser known, yet vibrant, new creative voices. She offers a reconsideration of "afro-outré" painter Jean-Michel Basquiat, the concept of "race-pride" in Jet magazine, and her take on Denzel Washington's career as a complex black male icon in a post-affirmative action era. Also available is Alexander's much heralded essay on Rodney King, Emmett Till, and the collective memory of racial violence.

Alexander, who has been a professor at the University of Chicago and Smith College, and recently at Yale University, has taught and lectured on African American art and culture across the country and abroad for nearly two decades. In The Black Interior, she directs her scrupulous poet's eye to the urgent cultural issues of the day. This lively collection is a crucial volume for understanding current thinking on race, art, and culture in America.

What’s new, now and next from contemporary Black artists

This book surveys the work of a new generation of Black artists, and also features the voices of a diverse group of curators who are on the cutting edge of contemporary art. As mission-driven collectors, Bernard I. Lumpkin and Carmine D. Boccuzzi have championed emerging artists of African descent through museum loans and institutional support. But there has never been an opportunity to consider their acclaimed collection as a whole until now.

Edited by writer Antwaun Sargent (author of The New Black Vanguard: Photography Between Art and Fashion), Young, Gifted and Black draws from this collection to shed new light on works by contemporary artists of African descent. At a moment when debates about the politics of visibility within the art world have taken on renewed urgency, and establishment voices such as the New York Times are declaring that “it has become undeniable that African American artists are making much of the best American art today,” Young, Gifted and Black takes stock of how these new voices are impacting the way we think about identity, politics and art history itself.

Young, Gifted and Black contextualizes artworks with contributions from artists, curators and other experts. It features a wide-ranging interview with Bernard Lumpkin and Thelma Golden, director and chief curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem; and an in-depth essay by Antwaun Sargent situating Lumpkin in a long lineage of Black art patrons. A landmark publication, this book illustrates what it means (in the words of Nina Simone) to be young, gifted and Black in contemporary art.

Artists include: Mark Bradford, David Hammons, Glenn Ligon, Kerry James Marshall, Julie Mehretu, Adam Pendleton, Pope.L, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Henry Taylor, Mickalene Thomas, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Tunji Adeniyi-Jones, Sadie Barnette, Kevin Beasley, Jordan Casteel, Jonathan Lyndon Chase, Bethany Collins, Noah Davis, Cy Gavin, Allison Janae Hamilton, Tomashi Jackson, Samuel Levi Jones, Deana Lawson, Norman Lewis, Eric N. Mack, Arcmanoro Niles, Jennifer Packer, Christina Quarles, Jacolby Satterwhite, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Sable Elyse Smith, Chanel Thomas, Stacy Lynn Waddell, D’Angelo Lovell Williams, Brenna Youngblood, and more.

African American art in the era of Malcolm X and the Black Panthers

In the period of radical change that was 1963–83, young black artists at the beginning of their careers confronted difficult questions about art, politics and racial identity. How to make art that would stand as innovative, original, formally and materially complex, while also making work that reflected their concerns and experience as black Americans?

Soul of a Nation surveys this crucial period in American art history, bringing to light previously neglected histories of 20th-century black artists, including Sam Gilliam, Melvin Edwards, Jack Whitten, William T. Williams, Howardina Pindell, Romare Bearden, David Hammons, Barkley L. Hendricks, Senga Nengudi, Noah Purifoy, Faith Ringgold, Betye Saar, Charles White and Frank Bowling.

The book features substantial essays from Mark Godfrey and Zoe Whitley, writing on abstraction and figuration, respectively. It also explores the art-historical and social contexts with subjects ranging from black feminism, AfriCOBRA and other artist-run groups to the role of museums in the debates of the period and visual art’s relation to the Black Arts Movement. Over 170 artworks by these and many other artists of the era are illustrated in full color.

2017 marks the 50th anniversary of the first use of the term “black power” by student activist Stokely Carmichael; it will also be 50 years since the US Supreme Court overturned the prohibition of interracial marriage. At this turning point in the reassessment of African American art history, Soul of a Nation is a vital contribution to this timely subject.

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A celebration of identity and individual human beauty, this vibrant monograph is the first book dedicated to fashion photographer Nadine Ijewere—the first Black woman photographer to land a cover of Vogue in the magazine’s 125-year history.
 
Dazzling color, dreamlike backgrounds, and a fierce gaze are the hallmarks of Ijewere’s work. But most important to the London photographer is subversion of traditional concepts of beauty. In fashion work, editorials, advertisements, and film stills, Ijewere draws not only on her roots in Nigeria and Jamaica, but also on her own experiences as a young Black girl in East London whose skin color, hair, and body type were nowhere to be found in the pages of magazines. Ijewere’s vibrantly colored, brilliantly staged pictures often focus on themes of identity and diversity, and feature nontraditional subjects that celebrate the uniqueness of disparate cultures. This first monograph includes images from her series of Jamaican women’s hairstyles across different generations; photographs of young people defying gender norms on the streets of Lagos; and intimate studio portraits of mixed-race sisters. Also featured is editorial work she has created for Vogue in the US and UK, fashion shoots for Stella McCartney, Dior, Gap, Hermes, and Valentino. At the vanguard of a history-changing artistic movement, Ijewere’s remarkable career has made her one of the most sought-after fashion photographers working today.

Spike Lee is a world-renowned, Academy Award-winning filmmaker, a cultural icon, and one of the most prominent voices on race and racism for more than three decades. His prolific career has included over 35 films, including his directorial debut She's Gotta Have It (1986), his seminal masterpiece Do the Right Thing (1989), and more recently, his Oscar-winning film BlacKkKlansman (2018). Spike Lee's provocative feature films, documentaries, commercials, and music videos, have shone the spotlight on significant stories and have made an indelible mark in both cinematic history and in contemporary society.

This career-spanning monograph titled SPIKE is a visual celebration of his life and career to date. The custom bold, typographic design is inspired by the LOVE/HATE brass rings that Radio Raheem wore in Do the Right Thing and that Spike Lee wore at the 2019 Academy Awards. The gold foil deboss on SPIKE on the vibrant fuchsia front cover is a bold and beautiful, eye-catching design. Featuring hundreds of never-before-seen photographs by David Lee, Spike's brother and long-time still photographer, SPIKE the book, includes behind-the-scenes, insider images that underscore his creative process and his significant impact on the culture at large. From his critically acclaimed film Malcolm X (1992) starring Denzel Washington, to his recent film Da 5 Bloods (2020) featuring the late Chadwick Boseman, Spike Lee's work continues to resonate now more than ever. Also included here are his beloved commercials with Michael Jordan for Nike, which helped launch the billion-dollar Jordan brand product empire, as well as his music videos with Prince and Michael Jackson. This is a must-have collector's item and ideal gift for any cinephile and fan of one of the most prominent and influential filmmakers in history.

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A scalding, uplifting, sorrowful, and exultant masterpiece of the modern American theater, The Amen Corner is a play about faith and family, about the gulf between black men and black women and black fathers and black sons.

In his first work for the theater, James Baldwin brought all the fervor and majestic rhetoric of the storefront churches of his childhood along with an unwavering awareness of the price those churches exacted from their worshipers.

For years Sister Margaret Alexander has moved her Harlem congregation with a mixture of personal charisma and ferocious piety. But when Margaret's estranged husband, a scapegrace jazz musician, comes home to die, she is in danger of losing both her standing in the church and the son she has tried to keep on the godly path.