This volume celebrates the historic acquisition by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco of sixty-two paintings, sculptures, drawings, and quilts by twenty-two contemporary African American artists. While these self-taught artists were born in the Jim Crow period of institutionalized racism, their works embody the promise and attainment of freedom in the modern Civil Rights era and address some of the most profound and persistent issues in American society, including race, class, gender, and spirituality. Originally created as expressions of individual identity and communal solidarity, these eloquent objects are powerful testaments to the continuity and survival of the African American culture.

Hardcover, 184 pages.Read more about the authors here.