African Art in the Barnes Foundation is an important scholarly publication masquerading as a coffee table art book. A comprehensive catalogue of its subject, the sixty-seven works in the collection are each provided with full-page color reproductions. (And by isolating each sculpture on a grey ground, Rick Echelmeyer implicitly acknowledges and continues the photographic legacies of Man Ray, Charles Sheeler, and Walker Evans.) Christa Clarke's comprehensive introductory essay, “Albert Barnes, the Barnes Foundation, and African Art,” provides the history of Barnes's approach to and philosophy of collecting, while the short scholarly essays accompanying each object offer a précis of current research in the field of African art history. The tome thus provides a rich compendium for both the eyes and the mind.1
Clarke's introductory essay argues that the Foundation holds an important place in the reception of African art in the West because, “[i]t was one of the first...