Black Artists on Art (Volume1) by Samella Lewis and Ruth Waddy

Revised Edition, Contemporary Crafts Publishers. Los Angeles, 1976.

Light wear to edges, no marks in text or images.

"BLACK ARTISTS ON ART is intended to introduce the works and thoughts of a selected number of producing Afro-American artists.

Traditionally it is customary to approach a subject of this nature with some historical justification. I have, however, decided to depart from this tradition because I feel that honest creative expression needs no history or justification. Many will be surprised to discover the large number of truly creative individuals who are participants outside of the mainstream of art in the United States and the Western world. The fact that these artists are generally unrecognized is not because they are ignored but because they are seldom observed.

The aesthetics of a people is directly tied to the mainstream of their existence. This assumption is a natural consequence which could give rise to resourceful creativeness . . . resourceful creativeness that could provide for differences that might serve as vital accents in the total human scheme. However, one finds that in the United States the "European style aesthetics" commands the art world. Most other cultural orientations are deemed "primitive," quaint or suspect."