2024 NAACP Image Awards Nominee: Outstanding Non-Fiction

A fun and informative introduction to the overlooked black artists and models who shook the world. Stylish. Sophisticated. Exclusive. The foundations of the visual art world are trembling.

Beyoncé and Jay-Z break the internet by combining contemporary black culture with visual art in their iconic music video shot at the Louvre. Kehinde Wiley powerfully undermines European masterpieces. The calls for diversity in museums and the resignations of leaders of the old guard resonate. It is clear that modern museums can no longer exist without change—and without the recognition that black people have been part of the Western art world from the beginning.

Silently held creatures within museums and private collections around the world are hundreds of faces of black men and women, many of their stories unknown. From paintings of imposing kings to a portrait of a young girl named Isabella in Amsterdam, these models lived diverse lives while helping to shape the art world along the way. Then, after hundreds of years where black presences were cast only as subjects of the white gaze, a small group of pioneering black American painters and sculptors achieved national and international fame, laying the groundwork for the blossoming of black art in the 1920s and beyond.

Captivating and informative, BLK ART is an essential work that elevates a globally overlooked legacy to its rightful place in the main canon of art. From the quiet halls of royal palaces to the bustling streets of 1920s Paris—this is black history as never before seen.

Pages: 224, Dimensions: 20.3x20.3cm