The 72-page slim book, a catalogue accompanying an exhibition of paintings, is divided into four major sections preceded by a foreword by Faustino Quintanilla, the Executive Director of the Queensboro College Art Gallery of the City University of New York, host of the exhibition. It highlights the sociohistorical significance of Victor Forestier Sow's paintings in the context of postcolonial Mali of the 1960s.
The book begins with Austin C. Imperato, Pascal James Imperato's son, reflecting on his personal childhood encounter with Sow's paintings, which he says filled all the rooms in his family house, including his own bedroom. Those paintings, he says, “provided me with a window into a faraway place and time that enriched my father's life and the life of our family … paintings were visual reference points that offered me solace and comfort. They also revealed to me, at an early age, the power of art” (p....